Women's Services
SAGE Family Camp Program
In 1992, the Director of Martha House was approached by the Director of the Catholic Youth Organization (C.Y.O.) with the idea of working together on a weekend camp for women and children who have experienced domestic violence. The proposed camp would provide women and their children who have experienced abuse with a safe and enjoyable recreational experience in a rustic outdoor environment.
The SAGE Family Camp Program that grew out of that first meeting began in the summer of 1993, and has been providing not only a recreational experience, but the time and space for women and their children to recover from the emotional wounds of violence.
Over the course of a week in August and weekend in February, women and kids have a chance to participate in a whole range of new and sometimes frightening experiences from canoeing and archery to balancing on a rope strung between trees; from snowshoeing and tobogganing to skiing. They have 24-hour access to counselors and an opportunity to join in a number of exercises specifically designed to regenerate trust. Everyone is invited to participate in every activity.
The following is a quote from one camper, “For the first time in my life, I was proud to be a woman. Camp taught me to celebrate being female. I had always looked at women as being weak and pretty much useless, because that is what I had been told all my life, and I desperately wanted to be more. The women at camp so inspired me, that just a few months after being home from my very first camp, I started my own business, and now I have the confidence to build a better life for me and my children.”