In the first place, we all need a fun ‘third place’

The past two pandemic summers have been rough, and especially so for children in families without extra cash for distractions, for cool lessons, for a summer of surprise. Some kids don’t even know what they’re missing.

And now the summer of 2022 approaches with all its flowering possibilities, heat and fun, water and fresh air. But not for the kids the Toronto Star sets out to help. For those kids, the Star’s Fresh Air Fund is just the best.

I confess, I am a grownup, can’t help it. What kids need this summer is the same thing that adults need: “the third place.”

American magazine journalist Allie Conti wrote about the concept this spring and I was charmed. The third place, a term invented in the 1980s by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, is “a physical location other than work or home where there’s little to no financial barrier to entry” and where people can be casually social.

For adults, it’s their local — not fancy, but friendly — where you can chat with strangers in the social style of an English pub.

Stop right there. For kids the third place is summer camp.

A Toronto child has a home, again nothing fancy, and a school, a place full of challenges. What does that child desperately need? A day or overnight camp, one of the 100 helped by the Star’s fund, that costs the child nothing, and takes her or him into the great outdoors where magic happens.

The sky is beautifully blue, the lake water laps, the landscape is green, and the kids are stunned by happiness. That’s why they’re so friendly together, so up for swimming lessons, sailing, eating outdoors where food always tastes better, for games and tents and stories.

What happens in summer camp stays in summer camp. It’s your third place. You make friends with kids from all over the city, maybe kids with less than you have. You notice that. It doesn’t matter. We’re going for a hike today! A campfire!

In the third place, you’re just you. Something about the open air makes your heart expand, and you learn something you might not realize about the great big world.

Your third place, the great Canadian outdoors, is always there for you. Third places never close. Bet you never noticed the forest before, a pretty stream running down to the river, the glory of a battered red canoe, the beauty of thousands of trees, their fluttering leaves through which you see bits of the bluest sky.

Here’s a secret you won’t figure out till later. This third place that the Star Fresh Air Fund has sent you to might become your first or second place when you grow up.

Nature awaits every Canadian. Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. And summer camps for city kids is where you will learn to show that love.

I’m proud of the Toronto Star for taking city kids out into the wild this summer, to just hang out and have fun. And that’s because they’ll be visiting it again and again. One day they’ll take their own kids there too.

That’s why I’m urging every Star reader to donate generously to the magical Fresh Air Fund this year. In 2019, the last pre-pandemic summer, we raised $741,000. You’re building Canadians, with better hearts, with more kindness, with an understanding of what real beauty is.

They had this golden time in their third place, all thanks to you, good generous readers who I’m proud to write for.

Please donate now.