Rapper DMC Co-Founds Camp for Foster Kids in Need

Rap pioneer, Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels, better known as one of the founding members of Run-D.M.C., is all about giving back. The 46-year-old recently co-founded Camp Felix — a summer camp intended to provide a getaway for foster kids in upstate New York. With 171 campers from New York City currently attending, the camp has become a beacon for kids looking to establish a sense of family outside of their foster homes.

“These kids say, ‘I am just a foster kid. I have nothing going for me other than just being miserable,” McDaniels told New York Daily News. “I tell them, ‘You are wrong. Your situation doesn’t define who you are.”

(See the latest news from camp, via NY Daily News)

Co-Founded with Sheila Jaffe, Emmy Award-winning Casting Director of “The Sopranos” and “Entourage”, the camp grows out of the fact that both were adopted and have searched for their birth families. They realized how fortunate they were, having been raised by loving families. Things could have gone very differently had they not been adopted.

 

DMC and Sheila decided to start THE FELIX ORGANIZATION/ Adoptees For Children in February 2006.

As adoptees, “We wanted to give back to those children who didn’t get adopted to a new home, who are growing up in the foster care system.”

Since 2006, THE FELIX ORGANIZATION has sent over 500 children to CAMP FELIX for one or two week sessions. The goal is to send more kids to camp each year and to nurture and encourage them throughout the year with additional, inspiring opportunities.

Located in Putnam Valley, New York, the camp provides basketball, swimming, softball, arts and crafts, drama, and yoga, to name a few. Because the two founders have seen such incredible success through the years, they have initiated a Counselor in Training program for campers who are no longer of age to attend FELIX but can still be part of the experience in a leadership role. “BEYOND CAMP” also addresses individual year round needs of some of these children.

“As we expand our horizons, we hope that you will join us in our effort. You can help make a positive change or new beginning for these children,” they wrote on their website. “Many have no one to take them to the movies, to ball games, to check their homework, to help them make healthy life choices. We have the opportunity to mentor and guide this next generation to dream a bigger dream of a life they never imagined.”

Any and all donations will make such a difference in these young lives. It takes $500 to send one child to camp for one week, but any amount of money would help to enrich and inspire a child in the foster care system.

To Donate:
Email at – [email protected]
Call: 212.877.4025

Make checks payable to:
THE FELIX ORGANIZATION Adoptees for Children
43 Oyster Bay Road
Locust Valley, New York 11560

OR, Donate Online: http://www.adopteesforchildren.org/id5.html