Marylisa Sullivan has lived in Wilton with her husband, Brian, and their son, Michael, for several years. Since first moving here, they’ve felt strongly about participating in the Fresh Air Fund program. By doing so, they wanted to share their family’s experience of spending time in nature with an inner-city child, someone whose city life may not always allow for the kinds of opportunities that the Sullivans enjoy living in Wilton’s suburban environment.

“We had seen an ad in The New York Times close to 10 years ago, when our son was still younger. We had both said that it was something we wanted to do one day,” she explains. “We only had one child and we thought it would be a great opportunity for us too.”

She explains that the Fresh Air Fund really tries to make it work both the visiting child as well as the host family–whether the family’s preference is to host a child of the same age or gender as their own. “We asked for a child around the same age as our son when we started. We were able to talk with him and his family before he came to CT, so you get a feel if it’s going to work,” she says.

The Sullivans started hosting Miles from Brooklyn when their son, Michael, was 8-years-old; the boys were the same age, and they’re now both age 12. A typical visit will last anywhere from 7-10 days. The program allows children as young as 7 years old to take part, although most children tend to begin a little later. Often families will host the same child every summer.

“If you develop a relationship, you can host all the way up until the child is comfortable,” quite often into the teen years. “We’ve had a great rapport with Miles,” Marylisa says, adding that they even get together during the rest of the year on school holidays, winter breaks, and to celebrate Michael’s birthday, as well as schedule trips to see Miles’ family in Brooklyn. “Miles’ mom and I have developed a friendship, too.”

“I’ve asked Miles what he likes most about coming out to visit, and he’ll say, ‘The quiet.’ He likes that he’s not in the city. I know too, he’s from an area with a high crime level. His parents have told me they don’t let the kids out at all. They don’t go to the park, they don’t go bicycle riding, they don’t go for a walk, they don’t go anywhere, unless they’re supervised. The kids end up spending a lot of time indoors. When we took a walk into town, and took walks down River Rd., to get an ice cream or by the river, and I can’t even tell you how happy he was.”

Marylisa knows that even though the program has been set up to help inner city children spend more time in the summer out in nature, the friendship and experience that both children have from the relationship benefits each of them.

“Miles will just look at my son and tell him, ‘You just don’t know how good you have it.’ They’ll have conversations about it. Michael is [becoming] aware of what other kids are going through. For instance, in the morning, we can go to the end of our driveway to catch the school bus, and within 20 minutes he’s in school. But Miles goes to a charter school, and in order to go to that school, he has to take two public buses and a subway; he has to be on public transportation for a least an hour, sometimes longer, before even getting to school. That takes a lot out of you. And there are so many other factors–food, whether they’re sleeping well. Now Michael understands that while we don’t live in a fancy house, according to Miles it’s fabulous. He lives in an apartment that he has told us is very small,” she explains.

The two boys have been able to find common ground in their likes and dislikes too. “They’re typical boys. They’ll FaceTime each other, they play video games. I can’t believe how engrossed they’ll get in video games,” Marylisa laughs.

During the summers that Miles has visited, the Sullivans have enrolled him in local camps–Camp Looper through Wilton Parks & Rec, the Wilton YMCA Camp Gordyland and Mountain Adventure Camp.

“He absolutely loved it. The YMCA subsidized it, so I didn’t have to pay, which was awesome. One year, Michael did Mountain Adventure, and they do rafting, kayaking, hiking, mountain climbing, and every day is an adventure. They offered Miles a scholarship. It was the first time he had ever done any of those things–it was the first time he’d been in a lake. He was thrilled, and something he would have never done before. He made a lot of friends there, and at Camp Looper,” Marylisa recalls.

While she’s not an official representative for the Fresh Air Fund, Marylisa hopes that more Wilton families consider hosting a child through the program. She says that there are many more families in Ridgefield and other towns who volunteer–“Only three or four families in Wilton, maybe, are Fresh Air Fund families,” she says. “I think it’s such a great program, I’d like to raise awareness for it in Wilton.”

Best of all, the Sullivans know it’s a relationship that will continue for the boys as they get older and even age out of the Fresh Air Fund program.

“They’ve developed a special bond. It’s such a great thing for both kids to have. I think parents should definitely consider it,” she says.

To find out more about becoming a Fresh Air Fund host family, contact Lisa Braden Harder via email, or Ann O’Brien at 203.244.8778 or via email.