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Summer Trips

Each year, LSAFHS clients and their families are invited to participate in free or low-cost day trips to places like Bear Mountain, Lake Welch, and Norwalk Beach. These getaways provide them with the unique opportunity to socialize with one another in a safe, calm, natural environment. We arrange for transportation and our staff joins the families during these trips in order to help take care of the children and free the parents up for a bit of relaxation

This past summer we were able to take over a thousand people on trips, at an average cost of $10 per person, including transportation and food. The trips create family memories that stay with clients forever. For many who participate, these trips are the closest thing they’ll get to a vacation all year.

Click for more Summer Trip pictures.

Program Name: Summer Trips Program
Contacts: Flor de Maria
Phone: (212) 987-4422
Location: 450 E. 115th Street between 1st and Pleasant Avenues
Schedule: Weekdays during the summer.

Story: A Day in the Mountains - One Family Trip
By: Grace Williams, Staff

Inside a big yellow bus, bumping along the road, everyone is happily singing along to top-40 songs. They’ve brought everything: bathing suits, sun block, lunch, and if they forgot anything, it’s been provided for them. Nine LSAFHS families are on a day’s getaway vacation to Bear Mountain.

At the park’s entrance, a little voice calls out, “I see a bear!” and everyone laughs. The bus rounds a corner to the parking lot and everyone cheers. They can forget the city and all of its noise and heat for one glorious day in the cool mountains.

They start with a picnic. Children feed hungry ducks in the expansive pond while their parents set up a feast. When the food is gone, several energetic kids race for the playground, where their parents and the LSA workers watch over them.

When everyone’s tired, hot, and dusty from playing, they head for the pool. The children pause to stare into the rippling blue water that fills the pool to the brim, and they get ready to splash around. Their parents are ready to cool down too.

Some kids are learning to swim for the very first time, while other more experienced ones jump into a game of tag hosted by a drenched staff member, who swore he wasn’t going to get wet, but who simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to have this much fun. Some parents jump in for a dip while others just sit by the pool in the sun, enjoying a lovely day.

Changing back into dry clothes is motivated by the prospect of a carousel ride: It has been a very long day, and as they each sink into the seats of their carefully selected animals, these day trippers can’t help but smile at the day they’re having. Lights flash and the music starts and by the time the animals start rising and falling, everyone is laughing.

And everyone “boos” when the animals slow to a stop. But it’s time to get back to the city. Parents check to make sure nothing and nobody is missing, file onto the bus, into their seats, and almost everyone falls promptly asleep.