Amherst breathes Fresh Air into city children's lives

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on July 25, 2008

When the Guisti family of North Amherst and Jacie C. Depaulis of the Bronx pulled up to the former's Owen Drive home, they saw a deer run by. They hadn't seen one on the street before or since.

It's one of the magical moments Cathleen Guisti associates with Depaulis' annual visits. They are arranged through the Fresh Air Fund, established in 1877 to give children from 6 to 18 years old living in disadvantaged, urban environments a chance to enjoy a vacation in the country. Thousands of children have participated over the years, although many more children sign up to participate than there are families to host them.

Most of the children are black and Latino and many live in single-parent households, often in high-rise buildings with nothing but concrete playgrounds for recreational amenities, according to the fund's Web site at www.freshair.org.

A visit can be the beginning of a lasting friendship. Jacie, 11, for one, has returned to the Guisti home for four years, and Rachel Guisti, 10, doesn't want her to stop.

"Nobody else can steal Jacie from me," Rachel said.

"She's been such a blessing," Cathleen Guisti said.

In fact, the New York City-based fund encourages families to keep inviting the same child year after year until they're 18. A half-dozen or so children visited families in Amherst this year, down from 22 or so some years ago, Guisti said. She thinks more families would participate if they knew about the venerable program.

Jacie's mother, also named Jacie Depaulis, is a huge Fresh Air fan.

"It's a very, very good program," she said, speaking from the Bronx. "Jacie enjoys that very much going up there. She says they go to school, see animals. They watch TV together, and they play on the swings. Jacie also likes to read to the little ones."

And the little ones, Rachel's younger brother Timmy, 7, and sister Emily, 5, like the attention, Guisti said.

Besides swimming, skating at Interskate 91 in Hadley and driving around with the Guisti family, Jacie and Rachel also like going to camp at the Stone House, a farm camp on East Pleasant Street, where they play with animals, bake blueberry pies and do needlepoint.

"I can hold chickens, and we get to play with the guinea pigs," Jacie said.

Rachel said, "I like Jacie coming up because she's friendly and we like some of the same things. Sometimes it's nice to have someone to play with other than my siblings."

And also, "Whenever she's mad at me," Rachel said, "we can never stay mad long."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.