Federal cuts end UM Youth Sports Program

ORONO – The National Youth Sports Program, which has offered free summer camp experiences to area youth for 13 years at the University of Maine, is among programs eliminated in recent federal budget cuts. While the university will work with the Maine Congressional delegation to restore funding for fiscal year 2007, the program will not be held this summer, according to NYSP administrator Stephen Butterfield.

Butterfield, UMaine professor of education and special education, established Northern New England’s first NYSP site under a federal grant in 1993 and built it into an award-winning program that has served thousands of youth from approximately 60 communities ranging from Lincoln to Newport and from Ellsworth to Dover-Foxcroft.

The day camp, which included free transportation and medical examinations, breakfast and lunch, offered six weeks of instruction in a variety of sports and educational activities to children and adolescents ages 10-16. The camp’s quality aquatic program, featuring daily instruction and practice, had a high success rate, with the vast majority of youngsters swimming effectively by the end of the summer and all overcoming most of their fear of the water.