`STOREFRONT' STUDENTS ENJOY CAMP LIFE

Each summer, the Children's Storefront Summer Camp in Lyme, Conn., provides inner-city students a respite from their densely populated, crime-ridden environment.

Any Storefront student age 6 to 12 is eligible for the free camp, which is held on an 80-acre farm owned by Elsie Newburg, president of the school's board of directors.

The six-week camp offers swimming, arts and crafts, campfires, and wide open space for sports.

Many of the students have never been outside of New York City, or even Harlem where the Children's Storefront is located, before they travel to Connecticut for their first year at camp.

Fifth-grader Tamu Sprauve has spent four summers at the camp. Her parents wouldn't be able to send her to summer camp at all if they had to pay for it, she says.

"I wouldn't get camp unless I went to school here. It's just for this school," Tamu says.

Msgivenchi (Gigi) Jennings, a fourth-grader at the Storefront, has attended the summer camp for the past three years. The experience has shown her that much of the world is not like Harlem.

"I'd move somewhere else when I grow up," Gigi says. "There's too much violence here."

And where would she like to move? "Places like Conneticut or down South somewhere," she says.