The Fresh Air Home provides an environment in which special needs children can socialize, mature and develop physically, emotionally and psychologically. Campers gain new confidence and return home with wonderful memories of fun and new friendships. Many of the children have their first experiences of leadership and competition in an environment of equality, and fun!

Children between the ages of 8 to 16 participate in one of two three-week sessions or a one week session A forth ten day session is for young adults from 16 to 18. Camp programming is the same as any other summer camp including arts and crafts, music/drama and swimming. Adaptive equipment and flexible rules allow campers to participate in every sport from basketball to hockey. Wheelchair tennis and sailing were recently added. The Young Adult session focuses on computer technology with graphic design, job skills/orientation, and social activities in addition to the regular programs. During the summer more than 150 campers participate in the programs.

The Home is one of the few summer residential camp facilities for disabled children in the Eastern United States. It is a barrier-free with paved walks and ramps. Children live in fully equipped dormitories.

Two registered nurses are on campus to provide 24 hour medical attention, a doctor is on call, and Southampton Hospital is five minutes away. There is also a physical therapist on staff.

Waterfront personnel is fully certified including CPR. The general staff population is an international group and along with the American staff provide a 1:1.5 ratio of counselors to campers. Most of the staff are students studying in fields devoted to special needs.

Many of the 150 children who attend each summer are in need of total care and require help in dressing, feeding, bathing toileting and transferring. Others use electric or manual wheelchairs, braces or crutches, while some manage without any appliances. Camp enrollment now includes children from schools, agencies and programs throughout New York and the United States.

How Is The Fresh Air Home Funded ?

The Southampton Fresh Air Home is a not-for-profit corporation which is tax exempt under section 501 c(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is funded by donations from individuals and foundations, and to a limited extent from agencies and fees. The Home does not discriminate against anyone because of inability to pay, race, creed, religion, national origin, sex or handicap.

The Southampton Fresh Air Home is a not-for-profit summer residential camp for physically challenged youth.

Our MISSION is to provide an enriching,, recreational camping experience. We are committed to helping our campers develop physically, emotionally, and educationally, with the goal of fostering esteem, maturity and independence through a broadly balanced program, while providing their families with a well deserved respite.

This organization is dedicated to improving and expanding it's programs and facilities as new opportunities, technology and financial support become available.

French Woods offers summer camp programs in dance, theater, music, circus, magic, visual arts, sports, and horseback riding programs. Each child, works with our staff to design his or her own unique summer experience. Campers are able to focus on one particular area of interest, or they may choose to select a variety of activities. We are at the same time, a theater camp, an art camp, a dance camp, a circus camp, a horseback riding camp, a sports camp, a magic camp, and a camp that offers all the traditional camp activites, with world class programs that each child can choose a-la-cart.

French Woods is located on a private lake in the western Catskill mountains of New York State near the Delaware river and the Pennsylvania Border. The camp is approximately two and a half hours from New York City between Monticello and Binghamton.

"Come Home to Camp;" this is the heart of the Onyahsa experience- for the new camper or the veteran alumnus. Since its inception well over a century ago, YMCA Camp Onyahsa has been a refuge for youth and families. Then as now, it offers security, authenticity, peace, and exciting fun; as necessary today as ever. In a beautiful wooded setting, on the edge of the lake, we don't only enjoy recreation; we aim to "re-create" in the Great Outdoors.

Celebrating its 107th year in 2005, Camp Onyahsa offers an exciting, genuine, and rewarding experience for any camper. Nestled in its own wooded bay on northern Chautauqua Lake, we offer traditional camp sessions, specialty camps, academic programs, teen activities, leadership development programs, extensive waterfront classes, outdoor environmental education, and much more. Each of our weeks has a fun and educational theme as the focus of its activities, and is implemented by caring, committed and competent staff members.

Campers live in rustic single-sex, age-graded cabins, tents, or cab-ents (cabin-tents) under the supervision of carefully selected and trained staff members. The Camp's directors and health staff also reside on site, and provide 24 hour per day supervision, and the Camp has a staff to camper ratio of at least 1:8.

All campers participate together in our special activities, such as campfires, skits, Club Time, theme nights, Olympic games, village nights, and other all-camp programs. Meanwhile, through age-group cabin and tent living with their adult counselors, campers learn as members of small groups to share and live cooperatively. The activities and living areas are staffed with well-qualified and highly committed counselors, who share the goal of making a stay at Onyahsa a truly rewarding experience for all members of the Camp Community.

The Onyahsa mission is to foster the healthy Spiritual, Intellectual, and Physical well-being of Camp Participants from diverse backgrounds within a nurturing outdoor environment, while creating a meaningful sense of Community among them through an active learning experience.

Here we seek to encourage Spiritual growth- through a non-denominational stress on compassion, social justice, human rights, and the strengthening of faith in a loving Creator; Intellectual growth by fostering tolerance, self-awareness, and multi-cultural mutual understanding- the foundations of peace; Physical health, an appreciation for the gift of life and a responsibility to nurture it; and the creation of Community- an authentic experience of belonging created by diverse members who share traditional common values including honesty, caring, respect, and responsibility.

The Onyahsa experience is set in a beautiful, natural outdoor environment, and is fostered by committed, caring and competent staff members and volunteers. Our goal is to provide a genuine, safe, healthy, and happy camp experience for youth and families through life-enriching, "back-to-basics" organized summer and year-round programs.

Join us for this wonderful, exciting, and necessary experience. And whether it's for the first time or the hundredth, Come Home to Camp Onyahsa.

Brand new 5000 square foot heated swimming pool with 80 foot long water slides