Growing up and finding ways to fit in can be hard for any kid, but it gets tougher when your mom or dad, sometimes both, are behind bars. Children who have an incarcerated parent tend to keep it a secret, which is a big burden.
That’s where Kids United by Incarceration comes in. It’s a summer camp for kids with a parent in prison, located in the Tahuya State Forest on the Hood Canal.
First things first, you need to meet Patience. She’s nine and a half years old and this is her second time at KUBI camp. Patience was in the middle of arts and crafts with about a dozen other kids while she explained she loves swimming in the lake and being in a boat, even if navigation isn’t exactly her strong suit.
“We went canoeing and earlier today almost got lost. Well, my friends and me were trying to turn, but instead we were turning to the right so we were kind of going to the pond,” she said. “But then we tried turning the other way. And also started tipping over.”
Another thing you need to know about Patience is that she loves to dance.
“My favorite thing last year was the dance party that we had. And we had competitions; and Isaiah, me, and this other kid; we all won,” she said.
Patience declined to show her winning moves, but she is working on some new ones. Plus, she’s been upping the ante by incorporating one-armed handstands and the splits. Patience may seem like a chatty kid, but there’s one big thing that makes her different from others, especially the other kids at her school: Her dad’s in prison.
“It’s hard. And besides, I only tell a couple kids at my school, but they just kind of spread it around. So I’ve been acting up just a little bit, but not as much as I used to,” she said.
Patience says her dad knew she was having a tough time. So he filled out the application to get her into the camp.
“He wants me to express my feelings — having to learn that other people, not just me, have a parent in prison,” she said.
Patience has a best friend at KUBI camp named Corina. She says Corina just “gets” her because her dad is in prison, too. So Patience says they spend a lot of time talking about them, that is when they’re not canoeing or learning how to use a bow and arrow. It’s just like any other kid attending summer camp. Bea Giron, the creator and director of the Kids United by Incarceration Camp, says that’s the whole point.
“This is a place where they can just be kids and have fun without having to feel the shame of incarceration from other children, from schools, from their community,” she said.
These parents have been convicted of crimes like drug possession, even murder. Giron says other camps geared toward kids with parents in prison also include children whose parents are no longer behind bars. But she wanted something different.
“For me, it was important to focus on the kids that had a parent in prison because they have different circumstances, different struggles than when a parent is already released,” she said.
Giron has the parents fill out an application, explaining why they want their children to attend. She says that helps parents feel more connected, even if they can’t be there for their kids, physically. Giron says it’s been good for everybody.
“I mean, last camp, we had letters from offenders telling us how great, and how much fun their kids had,” she said.
Giron isn’t just the camp director; She also works with the state’s Department of Corrections, and that’s another thing that sets this camp apart. A lot of the staff, like Geoff Nelson, actually work at DOC. Though, it wasn’t just the promise of fresh air and sunshine that got Nelson to volunteer to be a counselor at KUBI camp.
“I have a parent who is incarcerated,” he said. Nelson says his mom, and his sister, have both been in and out of prison for the last several years.
“When this opportunity came around, I thought how better could I, hopefully, positively impact my community and the children that were going to come here than to be able to share with them that I have experienced a lot of the things that they’re going through as well,” he said.
Nelson made a point of telling people he had a mom and sister who have been behind bars and discovered people still accepted him.
“It might be a pain or a baggage that you have, but you have to give it away. You have to give it to somebody else and let them share that burden with you,” Nelson said. “I think that’s what you see the children do here over the course of the three days, is begin to unload and then they are truly just kids having a good time.”
Though, Nelson says the camp doesn’t work on every kid. Some just can’t let anyone in. But the ones who change, the ones who start off reserved and wind up relaxed and smiling, those affect Nelson the most.
“We’ve had a couple children ask how long they’ll have to wait before they can come back and be counselors. And that gets you, too. Because you’re like ‘ahhh,’ because you need that,” he said. “We need you just as much as I hope you needed us.”
Even with this camp, and all the corrections staff, is it doing enough to show these kids that people in uniform aren’t all bad? Nelson says he’s not sure.
“I think that’s one of the toughest things to win back. If you ever witness your mom or dad being arrested and if you’re at an age where regardless of what the world thinks is normal, you thought your life was normal, I think that can have a lasting effect. I know that it did on me,” he said.
But those feelings didn’t last forever. After all, Nelson works in corrections now. And that’s why he won’t stop trying to get through to the kids. As soon as he was done talking, Nelson went off to meet a group waiting for him at the archery field.
