#Dock it springfield ma full#

Alaysia Mondon, 14, baits her hook with a worm while fishing on Lake Lashaway. “I mean, we’re obviously all different in our own ways,” said Alaysia Mondon, 14. (Jesse Cota/WBUR)Īuston’s friend on the basketball court said Camp Atwater also gives them the opportunity to explore their individuality.

#Dock it springfield ma full#

Full of rich, white people.’ But it’s nice to have somewhere you can go and trust people, and be around your own people.” A hot meal of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese and salad is prepared for campers to enjoy while they are at the camp. “When you think of different, you think ‘Oh, Massachusetts. “There’s not much representation of Black people in Massachusetts,” said Olivia Auston, 16, as she played with a fellow camper on the basketball court. But many campers and organizers say Atwater is still needed today, a century later. The camp was created at a time when other summer camps were closed to Black children. But this is the Camp Atwater, founded 100 years ago as one of the first - if not the first - summer camps in America specifically for Black kids.

It sounds like it could be any summer camp. On the shores of Lake Lashaway in central Massachusetts this summer, you’re likely to find kids frolicking in the sun, making pottery, fishing or talking to friends.

Chaun’cee Smith and Josiah Lopez fish off a dock in Lake Lashaway at Camp Atwater in North Brookville.