PORTSMOUTH, Va. — As Portsmouth Public Schools prepares for spring break next month, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is bringing back its Peace Week camp, a free program that offers children a safe, supportive place to spend their time off.
Now in its fifth year, Peace Week brings together several community programs and organizations, including Portsmouth United and the nonprofit A Purpose Driven, making this a citywide effort.
The goal is simple: keep kids engaged, safe, and learning during the school break.
The free camp offers a range of activities, including field trips, yoga, art, photography, and sports. Organizers say the program is about more than recreation; it’s about building meaningful relationships with young people.
“We’re here to help,” said Carlton Copeland, executive director of A Purpose Driven. “We want our kids to go on to prosper. We don’t want our young men and girls to continue to go to secondary schools or alternative schools, or end up in prison or six feet under. We want to be proactive and catch them before those things happen.”
For some families, the program offers critical support.
Lashunta Boyd said a shooting near her family’s previous home in Southside deeply affected her 10-year-old son.
“I really could have lost my son where we were staying there before,” Boyd said.
She said the experience changed her son and made her realize the environment around children can have a powerful impact.
“The environment sometimes can be the trigger to anything,” Boyd said.
With help from the organization Stop the Violence 757, Boyd began searching for resources.
“The first person I called was Monica Atkins, like, ‘Hey, this ain’t gonna work. I gotta figure out something,” she said.
Boyd eventually enrolled her son in the Peace Week camp through Stop the Violence 757, where she says he’s begun to change for the better.
“They get mentors, workshops, field trips, and most of all, they learn to put the gun down, talk it out,” Boyd said.
Copeland says the camp focuses on supporting entire families, not just the children who attend.
“We definitely want to focus on a holistic bond because we understand some of the root causes in our society stem from the whole branch of family,” Copeland said. “So we want to make sure we encompass and service the family as a whole.”
He said the program’s success can be seen in the progress of the children involved.
“We believe in them,” Copeland said. “The kids that come to the center, we’ve had honor roll students, we’ve had perfect attendance. We see the individual time we’ve put into our kids.”
For Boyd and other parents, that investment can make a lasting difference.
“It makes a big difference,” she said.
Parents can still register their children now for the Peace Week camp.
Click here for Portsmouth's Parks and Recreation Peace Camp.
Click here for the Stop the Violence 757 Peace Camp.
