The first night of hosting a Fresh Air Fund child we thought, “Oh no. What have we gotten ourselves into?” It was a drippy July evening, and we were in our backyard. We had just eaten burgers for dinner, and our guest, Rkel, was still in his stocking feet, as he had been since the moment he got out of our car. Rkel looked nervous and was shaking his head back and forth, like he was trying to see something but couldn’t.

“What’s the matter, Rkel?” my husband Bill asked him.

“What’s that light?” Rkel responded, obviously upset.

“What light?” Bill asked him.

“There are these little lights that keep flashing around my head!” Rkel said as he twisted and turned to see what was buzzing around him.

It hit Bill and me at the same time. “They’re lightning bugs!” With that, our five year-old, Carolina, ran up to show Rkel how to catch them in his hand. He was hooked, and suddenly our entire family was out catching lightning bugs for the first time that summer.

There are many stories about our first experience last summer as a host family for the Fresh Air Fund, but that one always seems to stick out for Bill and me and explains why this program is so worthwhile.

The Fresh Air Fund is an organization that places children from New York City with families in the suburbs up and down the East Coast. The children spend a week with the family and, basically, just take it all in. Not having a set plan was the best thing we could have done. Rkel and my son played basketball and rode scooters up and down our street and he and my daughter drew with chalk in the driveway and ran through the sprinkler. Nothing fancy, nothing planned. Our best moments were had picking and eating raspberries off our neighbor’s bush, playing baseball in the yard at dusk, and splashing in the pool.

I can’t say enough about how much this program affected my family. In all the Fresh Air literature, you read about how much the children get out of being able to go to “camp” outside the city, but we got a lot as well. Experiencing our world through Rkel reminded us what is important in life and how much we take for granted.

If you can find it in your heart and your schedule to host a child for one week this summer, I guarantee you will remember how much fun it is to catch lightning bugs and wonder why you don’t do it more often.

If you are interested in becoming a Fresh Air Fund host or have any questions, contact Shipley parent Anne Umbrecht or visit the organization’s website at www.freshair.org.