Summer Program Home Closed for now

N. Wildwood summer-program home needs rebuilding, will stay shuttered
By TRUDI GILFILLIANStaff Writer, (609) 463-6716
Published: Monday, February 27, 2006
Updated: Monday, February 27, 2006

There will be no laughing or singing at the Children's Fresh Air Home this summer.

The home, which sits at the corner of 11th and Surf avenues, has hosted thousands of children through the years as part of a Christian ministry that offered lessons in responsibility, daily devotions and fun times under the summer sun.

The children came from southern New Jersey families that could never afford a holiday at the shore, or they had experienced hardships such as the loss of a loved one.

But this year, while there are still children in need and volunteers eager to help them, the building is in no condition to hold them.

The rambling, four-story home was built in 1923 and is showing its age. There are cracks in the walls, the plumbing and wiring are in need of repair and the foundation has shifted.

Laura Burgoon, a member of the home's board of trustees, issued a news release Friday asking for support to get the building back in shape.

The board, she wrote, “made a painful decision not to open the home for the summer of 2006, due to the condition of the building.”

Karen Wille, who along with her husband, Craig, served as superintendent of the home for the past three years, said the board's engineer found it would be unwise to try to patch up the broken building.

Instead, it must come down and be replaced with a new facility at a cost of about $5 million, money the home doesn't have.

“I'm just heartbroken,” Wille said Friday.

The group traces its beginnings to 1896 when a woman named L. Ida Dukes started bringing children to a recreational area along the Delaware River. The organization was incorporated in 1911 and rented sleeping quarters were used until the current home was built.

Burgoon said this marks the first summer in more than 100 years there will not be a Children's Fresh Air Home for southern New Jersey's children.

Wille encouraged anyone who wants to help, both private individuals and businesses, to get involved and preserve the program.

“I became superintendent so I could work with the children and let them have some fun. To teach them right from wrong. This year we won't have that chance,” Wille said.