It’s hidden on the grounds of the old Skyline Cabana Club, away from commercial buildings and recreation areas surrounding Liberty State Park. In the distance, the Freedom Tower looms, and Lady Liberty can be seen through the bulrushes. A dirt road leads to Camp Liberty. Today is performance Friday, when parents visit painted-faced and costumed campers onstage under a large pavilion. This week’s show is “Prezzemolina,” an Italian fairytale about a Parsley girl and her encounters with goblins, witches, and a handsome prince, directed and narrated by the organization’s executive director, Carmine Tabone.
Tina Nacrelli watches her kids, Milo and Luke Carson, ages 6 and 8, perform in the play. Afterward, the campers have lunch and then choose swimming, drawing, and other activities for the rest of the afternoon.
“They like the looseness of the schedule and choosing what they want,” Nacrelli says.
Born and raised in Jersey City, Evette Gaetan is there with her daughter Caridad, age 8, who sits with her mom, patches of green paint still on her face. This is her daughter’s first summer at the camp. She enjoys singing, art, swimming, and playing a percussion instrument in the play.
“I like the way they put the play together,” Gaetan says.
The camp is much more than a kids’ hideaway for summer fun. The performances help them learn and build social skills.
Cutting-Edge Education
Camp Liberty is one part of Educational Arts Team, which has served city kids for the past 41 years. Its mission is to help students from underperforming schools and at-risk communities find academic success, increase self worth, and create a vision of a positive future.
Educational Arts is active during the school year with Dramatic Impact, a nonprofit initiative for third through eighth graders that seeks to improve language arts and math skills. The organization also offers hands-on professional development for public-school teachers, giving them strategies to increase student engagement, cognitive development, and social skills. Children participate in highly interactive workshops in the classroom, which help them stay motivated, retain information, and improve analytic skills and social interaction.
In a study analyzing the effectiveness of the program, 63 percent of students from the sixth and seventh grades who were in the program for two years and who participated in a Theater Strategies project passed the New Jersey ASK Standardized Test in math in 2008, compared to a control group that did not participate. Only 19 percent of the control group passed that portion of the test.
In classrooms where teachers employ Dramatic Impact strategies, 76 percent of fourth- and fifth- grade students scored at a proficient level on the state ASK Test in Language Arts, compared to only 50 percent of a control group.
Second and third graders who were involved in a Theater Arts and Literacy program from October 2011 to May 2012 improved their pre-cognitive and pre-social behaviors by 15 percent over the school year. They were rated on understanding their work, showing motivation and initiative, and accomplishing more than expected.
Dedicated Team
Tabone sits on a bench surrounded by kids as they wait for the bell that alerts them to the start of the next activity. They’re on a first-name basis with him, and he says he knows many of them as well.
As one of the founding members of the organization in the 1970s, he previously worked for the city and saw the camp through its meager beginnings with only 50 to 60 kids. Today, seasoned staff members mentor younger ones, some of whom had been campers. With word of mouth and little advertising, the camp now sees around 200 kids on any given weekday.
Brittany Cavanagh was a camper who had been involved with the program for 10 years. She’d been a lifeguard but now is health director and plans to become a pediatric nurse.
“It really is a nice space, and you can’t find that anywhere else,” she says.
One of the buildings houses art rooms. Jersey City native Dom Buccafusco has spent 35 years with the program. A former teacher at New Jersey City University, he staffs the Comic Room where he teaches students to draw anime, cartoons, still-lifes, and other artistic styles. Student creations hang around the room, where art counselor Christine Zingalis is in her first year. Bob is another longtime participant who’s been with NJCU’s media arts department since 1981.
Tabone says, “We’ve seen a lot of kids really mature here,” pointing out a once-shy camper who has improved her social skills. The organization hopes to mature as well, with rebuilt rooms and maybe even satellites in other communities, such as Camden, where the need is great.
“We want to expand outside of Jersey City,” Tabone says. “But right now we have a waiting list just to get in here.”—JCM
For more information, visit educationartsteam.com.