Life Magazine may be gone. But it still has a summer camp in N.J. – NJ.com

The request was simple from John Ames Mitchell, the co-founder, editor and publisher of the original Life Magazine.

He asked readers in 1887 to donate $3 to the Life Fresh Air Fund, a charity he created so city kids could spend summers in the country.

Life Magazine readers responded. Boys from New York City spent two weeks on his Life Farm in Branchville, Connecticut, a camping model that was replicated in Pottersville in Somerset County when financier James Cox Brady donated a portion of his property in 1923 to do the same thing.

Nearly 100 years later, the Life Magazine model hasn’t waned in the Garden State — Pottersville is home to the last remaining LifeCamp in the country.

“We’re it,” said Kathy Cree, executive director of LifeCamp, which was known as Camp Raritan in the early years.

The kids today, however, are not from New York. They’re from the Greater Newark area, a relationship that started in 1952 with the Newark Boys Club, now the Boys and Girls Clubs of Newark.

They may be coming from a different city, but the goal of connecting young people to nature is the same.

“We’re the best kept secret in New Jersey,” Cree said.

It’s the best kept secret on 100 acres of rolling hills and woodlands that front the Lamington River.

LifeCamp moved on years ago from its partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, establishing its own nonprofit organization to serve the needs of kids that have not changed since the development of organized camping after the Civil War.

For six weeks every summer, more than 300 kids from the greater Newark area experience an outdoor education cloaked in fun.

They’re learning, even if they don’t realize that academic skills from the school year are reinforced through games and programming geared toward their interests.

“We try not to tell the kids that,” Cree said, smiling.

Think about Jenga, the game where players take turns pulling out blocks from a wooden tower before it collapses. It’s exciting, but the kids are learning about spatial relation. Remember, “I Declare War”? There’s number fluency going when the cards hit the table.

In the recreation hall, campers have to concentrate. They pivot from computer literacy to robotics to criminal justice.

Niels Rongen, a 16-year-old senior at Gill St. Bernard’s High School, showed them how to build a robot, then write the code to make it follow a line across the floor.

“It sounds simple, but it’s all hard,” Rongen said. “They all seem to enjoy it.”

Across the hall, campers were huddled in front of computer screens, writing more codes to make their drones fly.

Sponge Bob Square Pants was on trial in another class for the murder of Mister Crab. The kids – half are the prosecutor. the others the defense attorney – have to give opening and closing statements to a jury made up of LifeCamp staff and volunteers.

“Every day you do something new,” said Semaj Johnson, 12, of Newark.

There’s dance, a step class, an exercise using ropes that that teach kids how to trust and depend on one another. Musicality always seems to catch their ear, too. In a recording studio, they write songs, record, edit, then get a DVD of their work.

Along a trail leading to an opening in the woods, kids learn how to swim, some for the first time, in the camp’s original pool that was built in the 1920s. Off in the distance at the top of a slight hill, a slew of bicycles lay on the ground in front of a barn that once housed ponies.

The campers who know how to ride pedal their way on a four-mile loop that takes them into Gladstone and back. Those who don’t know how to ride are not left out. George Mendez, a program specialist, and staff members taught about 10 campers in two weeks.

“It was pretty cool,” Mendez said.

LifeCamp is that and then some to 11-year-old Takara Phillips of East Orange. She had just come from the Lamington River and explained to me why the water quality was excellent after her environmental science lesson.

“I just love it (LifeCamp),” Takara said.

She’s been coming since she was 6-years-old and wouldn’t miss it for anyone. “You get to come and learn and have fun with your friends.”

They’re outside all day, and there’s so much room no one is on top of each other. While some kids swing from tires, others play kickball or eat S’mores around a campfire. Lunch and breakfast are served in a rustic cafeteria. Its light fixtures are wagon wheels that hang from the ceiling.

LifeCamp is not cheap to operate. The annual budget is $700,000, its revenue coming from donations and fundraisers.

“When you give to LifeCamp, your money is actually going to kids,” Cree said.

It’s $400 a week for each child, but LifeCamp makes the program accessible. Parents pay $75 a week per child. There’s a lot of dedicated volunteers and a paid staff who come back year after year to make it happen.

Shana Brown, a computer specialist, made the mistake of taking off two weeks one summer.

“It was the worst time of my life,” said Brown, who attended LifeCamp when she was a child. “I missed my kids. Never again.”

The secret is out.

In a serene, peaceful environment 45 minutes from Newark, young people receive enrichment and support.

“We want to stop being the best kept secret,” Cree said.

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future — all the unusual things that make our great state what is it. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

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Barry Carter may be reached at bcarter@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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