A CAUSE FOR CONCERN?

[Music] according to john mackey and lenny moore there is a cause for concern [Music] where the blues ain't nothing yes a good dream that's gone bad crazy blues ain't nothing just a good dream that's gone bad lord lord lord lord lord [Music] the blues ain't nothing [Music] good dreams that's gone bad [Music] in the opinion of captain hd durham commanding officer of the bainbridge naval training center and mr james smith executive director of the camp there is a cause for concern it came about after certain disturbances in the city of baltimore and two baltimore coal athletes john mackey and lenny moore came to the mayor and said we ought to have some sort of a camp or something for these youngsters i think our headquarters board will show the reaction of the informal letters that coming from many satisfied parents within the neighborhood the coordinators who have served from the neighborhood as neighborhood coordinators for camp concern they all have expressed their views of the program then from excellent to outstanding the navy had facilities that they wasn't using here at bainbridge through funding by hewnoeo camp concern started the offices of economic opportunity health education and welfare and the mayor of baltimore thomas j d'alessandro know there's a cause for concern well it's the greatest reflection of the kind of cooperation that's needed between the municipal government dealing with urban problems and the military installations that surround a big urban community we need it here in baltimore a summer camp for our disadvantaged youngsters living in the inner city we sought out the u.s navy and the camp bainbridge installation it was a perfect combination of government as reflected by the city administration and by the federal government to the u.s navy dealing with an urban problem and providing summertime recreation for youngsters to hear a child from a disadvantaged area in the inner city of baltimore recounts some new experiences there certainly is a cause for concern every morning when we go to get on the bus to go to camp concern wow we see some apple trees on our way coming and when we get to camp concern we have to go and sit on the bleachers and then then we um go swimming and then we are going to eat our lunch and i think camp concern is a very nice very nice place to come it hurts to laugh and i'm too old for crime [Music] laugh and i'm too old for crying lord love when i sang the blues just to eat my troubles when i get on the bus in the morning we always have to cross this big long bridge to see this water all with fishes jumping up in it on the way over then we sit then we place it on bridge with water and we look in the water and we see boats then we get then we see cows and horses so this morning we went swimming and from swimming we come down from lunch i saw a pear tree and i saw an apple tree and um and a tree you know like bushes and leaves all of them spider webs all over and everything we go under the fridge then we get here and when we come camp with them we get off the bus then we go and sit down and then we say the pledge the pledge of allegiance starts our program we both felt that this is something that should be open for the campus to do but an idea to see if they would enjoy [Applause] the first day this year that we started it the camp director asked for a volunteer to lead the pledge of allegiance some 200 hands were held he picked one girl 13 years old to lead the pledge of allegiance and this is this is real heartwarming and gratifying to see a 13 year old step down in front of 550 of her contemporaries peers and subordinates and say follow with me and say the pledge of allegiance and i think the expression and the cooperation volunteer cooperation on a part of the campus spoke for itself by saying we are american we are proud of being american one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice it's become so popular that the camp director has been using four or five to lead the pledge of allegiance from this we move on into the different activities one two two to the corner come on man you gotta pick on him that's not a big boy you got a pick one one got the mismatch in the corner mike farrell come here boy come here get it get it put it up put it back come back where the other side come on you got to think come on man come up quick move the ball gotta move the ball and move the ball come back out time time time come on woody what you're doing boy camp concern uh started last year these youngsters uh some 500 550 strong daily six days a week nine weeks last summer and again nine weeks this summer come out here and arrive here around 10 30 in the morning and leave around 5 5 15 in the afternoon kids that are selected for camp concern come from all over baltimore city is the policy of the executive director of which i agree that we have all types of participation regardless as to race creed color and we have no lines divided in baltimore city no set ghetto areas the camp is open to all disadvantaged youth in baltimore city the mayor is very interested in this and is doing all he can to support it well i go there about three times each summer initially to start off the program and once or twice during the course of the summertime program to see just exactly how it's operating how the youngsters are progressing and we concentrate not only on recreation you know we also concentrate on health proper oral hygiene or the correct way of brushing your teeth now the teeth in the mouth are divided into three portions the crown which is the exposed portion or the visible portion in the mouth the neck of the tooth this small portion right here where the enamel and the dentin of the roots meet and the root which carries the nerve endings to the pulp chamber now the crown is covered with enamel which is the hardest substance in the body now the mouth is divided into four sections or quadrants the upper right outside surface the upper left the lower right and the lower left sailors around the camp know there's a cause for concern many volunteer to help the counselors many volunteer to teach in their spare time they lend a hand in the subject areas that make camp concern just a little bit better and work toward the back of the mouth how many times do you brush your teeth after every meal after every meal yes that's twice a day twice a day yeah that's good you should brush at least after every meal if you have a snack you should at least rinse your mouth with water if you cannot brush okay how many times do you go to the dentist a year once once a year do you find that when you go to the dentist you have a lot of decay well we do have follow-up procedure through our health component services we direct them to our local health station or through the health department who assist us in funneling these people where they can get aid that's exactly the point a lot of us talk about recreation but health plays an equally important task from a practical point of view we're still in our infancy but we're working along the way and here the federal government through the u.s navy and through bainbridge have planted the seed for a health program that allows follow-through by the municipal government which we hope will provide good health checkups and results for youngsters who ordinarily would never be exposed to that kind of examination i know what they put out is good solid sound information they show film on social diseases they show film on drug abuse they have lectures on alcoholism it is good information and is put out at a level that they can understand after uh a day of recreation health lectures dental hygiene lectures basketball clinics wrestling and two good navy meals they leave tired but happy and these people and this is the inspirational part of it for once we have a program that people become involved we're in a age where we're talking about community involvement and decentralization camp concern offers just that for the neighborhood coordinator and it's the greatest thing in the world to come down early in the morning through the city especially in the hot months of june and july and august and see these youngsters uh congregating on corners at different intervals of the key intersections of the city waiting for bainbridge the bainbridge bus and everybody now throughout the community knows why these youngsters are gathering there and where they're going and they're cognizant of the tremendous contribution that the military and the area of metropolitan baltimore is playing to help us with our summer time programs they go out there they enjoy it they're out of the street and they're you see when they're loose in the street and no place to go as you can see around in this neighborhood but really don't have any place for recreation but the children can go out there they get wholesome meals they have uh leaders out there to instruct them as to what to do and how they should do it and they really enjoy it they come back you find their different children these uh counselors are some of the finest individuals i've ever met they will do work six days a week and they get a new group every every monday so what they did last week or how they instructed the individual last week doesn't hold over for the following week because they have to start all over again and i imagine they're they do have many tiring experiences this is the amazing thing about the way they handle these these kids well it gives them a good head start it knows it learns them how to treat people he learns them in so many ways and so many other things to do there's one counselor per 25 youngster they handle them all differently but they all demand that these youngsters obey there's one up there in particular that is a fiend on cal cynics they call him tough tony but no one resents tony our staff is made up of young college students we're made up of young school teachers and college-bound high school students who might have many talent that we need as a staff person they are selected by coming into our office and with a thorough interview to test those qualities that we feel that are very important the temperament the patience the endurance and the will to work for the good and the spirit of camp concern to show that concern for our campers i do talk to them those that are teachers about their degrees and a good many of their degrees are in social work but not all either uh there's one gen up there that uh degrees in uh physics for instance but i think they're all interested in the what i said before is we have a problem and let's do something about it we do not select the campus it's the people's grassroots people from the community they tell us that they they go swimming they get a plenty to eat and they have so many things to do that it keeps their mind occupied all the time they're really being exposed to something that they should be should have been exposed to these things are not available in any center around here for them we have a few portable pools around but nothing really like you have there and mostly i like going swimming i think it's fun the swimming pool that's used is not used by the navy in the summertime it's used by the navy in the winter time but in the summer we have two outdoor pools and we don't use the indoor pool in the summertime you definitely need definitely need the cooperation of the uh camp commander and here with captain dorham we've been blessed in having a naval officer who welcomed us with open arms and has gone uh all out in an effort to make us feel welcomed i make it a point to be with these youngsters at least twice a day and participate in one meal go around and talk with them well they tell me the games that play and go and swimming and all in those hills they have to climb and all it's quite interesting we have to realize that all commands do not have the same available facilities and i would encourage any command to do this program provided he has the facilities and i do here last year we had a total of a few over 5 000 different participants this year we're running just about that norm monday tuesday they're a little shy wednesday they're a little warmer and by thursday friday and saturday all of them want to shake hands with me they want to identify me they call me an admiral they call me a general they call me a colonel uh i even had one youngster to come up to me last year and count my stripes say one two three four hiya sergeant last year we gave them free access to the milk the mechanical cap in the mess hall in these youngsters it was hot the milk was cold so they would drink too much milk consequently we had some stomach aches that we had to take care of this year we issue the milk and they can have as much as they want but it isn't that free there's one other thing that we corrected in the mess hall that these youngsters start eating at 12 o'clock and at 1300 they have to be in the theater for a health lecture or in another room that we have for a dental hygiene lecture so they have to eat in 45 minutes the first couple of days it took a little longer than 45 minutes after watching the chow line i saw what the hold up was it was soup a nine ten year old youngster is not accustomed to handling a gi tray if you put a bowl of hot soup in on top of that then they can't handle it they spill it so we cut out the soup besides who needs hot soup in the summer it's obvious that we must have money to put a program like this over first we must think in term of hew health and education welfare of our contribution of a hundred thousand dollars we have the oeo through the community action agency of baltimore city who also fund us the 52 000 uh we have in-kind services of the bureau of recreation of baltimore city and also in-kind services uh from the health department of baltimore city how much does it cost the navy there's not one cent channel to camp concern with the navy we do not spend any funds in fact most of our funding comes to the federal government through the office of health education and welfare and neither am i encroaching upon any officer and enlisted through recreation facilities because the facilities that are used by the campers are not normally used in the summertime in the opinion of oster job camp concern has proved its worth by giving the disadvantaged youth from the urban area of baltimore a chance to play without the high risks of crippling injuries that occur on the city streets so far this year we have not had a single major casualty we have had incidents where kids have fallen slipped down skimmed the knee something similar to that last year i think the only incident we had that we could consider serious was a fractured arm and i lay this to two things possibly one the youngster knows how to take care of himself and two that there is good strong discipline among the counselors we interview them and screen them on the basis of many factors that we're looking for in a good counselor we kept a lessons learned pamphlet last year and everything that seemingly went wrong because i had never run a program like this we wrote it down and we worked this winter and we got committees together they did cut down to evaluating cap concern right at the bottom and far as housekeeping for us and this is so important we learned so many uh points of what our needs might be in this area of housekeeping for camp concern some of the things that don't uh s sound too difficult uh would be such as parking the buses where do you park the buses for the pickup well this created a problem because youngsters like any other youngster don't go like the crow flies so you have to make sure that the bus is available and close by we moved the parking of the bus i think that if another agency was going to go into a project similar to this they might want to check with the executive director of the officials here at bainbridge and sort of use our program for a guideline to which to set their program up by what we learned happened to be to expand our services in health the component which includes dentistry screening we learned to that we had to increase some of our stuff to get maximum participation in some of the facilities that bainbridge provided for us and specifically we're talking about the olympic swimming pool which we have and found out we were much too short in staff to get the maximum use out of that pool in fact as a result of our effort it came bainbridge we had been fortunate enough to recruit or enlisted the support of other military installations in and around baltimore to do a similar type summer recreational program not of the magnitude or the size of camp concern but at least they wanted to get in the swim of things so to speak as at least participating representing their own services and helping the mayor of baltimore and the city administration deal with the urban problem according to captain h d durham he meets the challenge of camp concern head on until two o'clock because at 1400 the pop band moves in uh about four or five days a week and i guess this is where it comes out that i'm an old square i just have to have to leave i can't take that type music [Music] there is a cause for camp concern because that is familiar to many in this country today because that is found in every major city where the disadvantaged are pushed out of the way for progress it is caused by big industry riots racism riots poverty riots and we have a social problem here and i think we can say it's caused by whatever we want to say it's caused by but i know where the responsibility lies it lies in the american citizen my mission here at bainbridge has not changed one bit i am still charged with providing services so that trained male and female navy type school the fleet but we're all charged as commanders of bases for community relations and this is where i move in as a in my community relations project the youngsters received the tangible benefits uh of the program but the mothers and the neighbors down in the neighborhoods see these buses come see their children leave see the children pick up their spirits and also pick up weight in many instances if you're talking butter and bread and come back a happy child a more alive child a more interested child and this i think has been a soothing effect throughout the city we don't operate the program with the idea that by doing this program we're avoiding any civil disturbance or anything of that nature we're programming for people it's a good program per se the results justify what we've done and we hope we're planting the seed for these youngsters to develop into solid citizens [Music] let's take this youngster that comes out here he's probably sat next to a youngster in the school that bragged about being in a camp now this youngster can tell his classmate yes i was at camp concerned i don't think enough can be said for a program like camp concern where you take the youngster and treat him as an individual camp concern does it notices them there is a cause for concern camp concern is a program that supports this cause and it's not a piecemeal approach or a cooling off approach as far as operating under duress that if we don't do something we're going to have disturbances it's just a good program and that's the way we started it from the very beginning when we get on the bus to go back home with some time we passed the buses and and the children be laughing and playing on the bus and then we talk and and play on the bus and some of the the big kids they smoke on the bar [Music] well i may be blue i won't be blue always says i may be blue i won't be blue always love lord lord lord lord i may be blue [Music] [Music] someday [Music] shine my backdoor someday you