Hamptons Art Camp Reopens At The Church In Sag Harbor

The Hamptons Art Camp, a unique day camp for kids that emphasizes community service, will take place at The Church in Sag Harbor this summer. Founder Marit Molin first started the summer camp in 2019, with the goal of giving underserved children the opportunity to attend summer camp for no cost.

“After moving out here, I quickly realized that there are a lot of children that have nothing to do during the summer,” Ms. Molin said. “They’re either spending the summer with grandma, in the back of dad’s truck, or waiting for mom to come home from work — I started the camp with those kids in mind.”

While most summer camps across the East End charge families a fortune for their kids to attend camp, nearly half of the campers at the Hamptons Art Camp attend for free.

“Forty percent of the campers are always non paying and the fundraising we do pays for their spots, while the paying children to some degree help pay off some of the costs,” Ms. Molin said.

What also helps to set it apart from other summer camps is its emphasis on community service. The camp, which is part of a larger organization run by Ms. Molin called Hamptons Community Outreach, introduces children to impactful volunteer work at a young age.

“Every week, there’s a community service project, because our goal is for these kids to grow up and become active members of their communities,” Ms. Molin said. “Some volunteer projects that we’ve done in the past are making soaps for children staying at The Retreat shelter, we’ve made dog beds and dog leashes for the Southampton Animal Shelter, and we’ve made greeting cards for the elderly. In 2019, a favorite project among the kids was making salad dressing for food pantries.”

Ms. Molin also said that the camp is committed to diversity and inclusion, making it a safe and welcoming place for children of all backgrounds.

“It’s the camp’s mission to have a diverse crowd, both ethnically and socioeconomically because it’s important for everyone to learn how to get along with each other and be exposed to people from different backgrounds,” Ms. Molin said. “Our experience has been fantastic. We see friendships being forged between kids from different towns, and different schools, and it’s really a joy to see them all come together.”

Aside from community service, the campers engage in a variety of art focused activities like sculpting, drawing, painting, “slime” making, and photography.

“Each summer the kids bring in recyclable materials and they build things out of those materials. Last year, they built musical instruments out of recyclables that they brought from home, and it was truly amazing to see what some of the kids created,” Ms. Molin said.

The creative art projects are certainly a hit among the campers, including 11-year-old Rosie Hernandez Cruz, who has attended the camp for four years said her favorite activity is “playing with model magic,” but she also loves the waterslide that makes an occasional appearance on special days. 10-½-year-old Grace Gonzales will spend her fourth summer at camp this year and said her favorite thing about camp is simply “seeing all her friends … and throwing water balloons at them.”

During its first year, the camp was held at the Watermill Community House and has since been held at the Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, and the Bridgehampton Community House. Ms. Molin expressed her excitement about the new camp space as The Church — a new community arts center, exhibition space and gallery in the village — seems to be the perfect location for the art camp.

“When we visited the space, it was immediately apparent that it would be an amazing place for kids to be because it’s inspiring and beautiful. It’s also part of an art gallery, so it’s a fantastic place to hold art camp,” Ms. Molin said.

Though the institution began with the creation of the art camp, it has quickly expanded to an organization that provides children with tutors, birthday parties, music lessons, winter coats and families with funds for electricity bills and phone bills.

“We started as an arts camp, but I quickly realized that camp for no charge was just a small part of what these children needed, so we added on an outreach component,” Ms. Molin said. “At the start of the pandemic, the demand for certain needs was so gigantic that we started fundraising more than we have ever in the past, and we had to switch our name because we became so much more than just an art camp. So, we became Hamptons Community Outreach,” Ms. Molin said.