Maine camp helps 9-11 families Survivors, mostly women and children, heal in temporary community

CASCO – Jennifer Jacobs keeps forgetting to put out the garbage. It’s one of many new responsibilities in her life since her husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

“I’ve had neighbors nice enough to call me to remind me it was garbage day,” said Jacobs, of Randolph, N.J.

She is sitting under tall pines on the second-floor balcony outside her room at Camp Sunshine. Her 20-month-old daughter, Zoe, is napping inside.

Jacobs is one of almost 30 single parents here with their children to be pampered, to have fun, to breathe and grieve freely, to spend a week away from the daily harangue of their post-Sept. 11 lives.

It’s also an opportunity to share their feelings with others who know what it’s like to lose a spouse or father for no rational reason.

Camp Sunshine, which has built a national reputation over 18 years by caring for the families of children with life-threatening diseases, looks different this week. For one, the parents are almost exclusively women. But the camp’s mission remains the same.

“This is something we do all the time,” said Marty Grossman, a member of the camp’s board of directors. “We are experienced in dealing with disaster.”

Grossman, of Hillsdale, N.J., went to various survivors’ groups in New York and New Jersey during the spring to promote the camp.

He met with a group of widows in Basking Ridge, N.J. “We just talked and talked and talked,” he said. “And I cried and they cried.”

There were 30 women, and seven of them decided to attend with their children.

But for many, it was a hard sell. The American Camping Association offered 800 free slots to kids of Sept. 11 families, but only 125 were filled.

“I went everywhere,” Grossman said. “They’re not ready to go. Many are just not ready to go.”

Jacobs, for one, was ready.

“I’m trying to do what I can to put my life back in order,” she said. “We had our direction, our goals, our path, and now that’s shifted and I have to figure out what the new one is.”

Nancy Cincotta leads daily sessions for the parents. On the first day, the mothers talked about coping without their husbands. The next day, they were talking more existentially – about what happens after death.

“It really is impressive to see how capable these women are,” Cincotta said. “Here these people are facing the vacation without their husbands.”

Camp Sunshine had many offers of help, including one from an organization of private airplane pilots who volunteered to fly the families to camp.

Only five families accepted, and one of them was Nancy Yambem of Beacon, N.Y. The rest took a bus.

“When 9-11 hit, families couldn’t believe someone could be so evil,” Yambem said. “Since then, this country has given such an outpouring. … There’s still good in the world.”