‘You gave him purpose… gave him his freedom’: grateful mother from Colombia celebrates Sunshine Fund

Freedom for the Recio family, in their native Colombia, was tied to an unexpected emblem.

“Our children watched The Parent Trap at least 50 times, dreaming of canoes and lakes and cabins in the woods,” Angela Recio told a crowded room at the Caboto Centre on Thursday.

“But in Colombia, where we lived in South America, that kind of freedom was unimaginable. Sending our child off into the wilderness was not just unthinkable, it was unsafe.”

Recio was addressing donors, nature lovers, Manitoba Camping Association staff and friends at the organization’s appreciation luncheon for supporters of its Sunshine Fund.

Established in collaboration with Winnipeg Free Press staff in 1979, the fund serves an easily overlooked need: every child in Canada deserves access to the great outdoors, which for countless Manitobans has been experienced through summer camp.

In 2025, the Sunshine Fund — with vital support from Free Press readers — raised more than $300,000.

It enabled nearly 700 kids from underserved backgrounds to sleep under the starry sky, roast marshmallows, paddle through craggy landscapes and partake with new friends in a quintessentially childhood experience.

The funds cover toiletries, sleeping bags, pillows and necessities to attend summer camps at 31 destinations, as well as the enrolment costs themselves.

“These kids are unable to attend without the support of our donors. So, this life-changing experience means the world to them,” says Dana Moroz, Sunshine Fund manager.

“For some of these kids, this could be the only week of a year that they get three meals a day, that they feel like they’re loved, accepted and encouraged,” adds Kim Scherger, MCA’s executive director.

While some children are in care, others come from loving families of modest means, such as the Recios, when they arrived in Canada.

“Simply sending them to camp was not financially possible at the time, but I believed in Canada. I believed that here, doors open when you knocked,” Angela Recio, who’s a physician by training but struggled at first to find work here, told those gathered at the luncheon.

Recio went to the principal of École River Heights School, where her son Juan Pablo Garcia Recio was a student, for guidance on how she might send him to camp.

“A week later, she called and said, ‘Angela, Juan Pablo is going to Camp Stephens for a two-week new trip, and you don’t have to worry about anything.’ I wish you had seen his smile,” she added.

The YMCA-YWCA of Winnipeg-owned camp in Lake of the Woods has been making summer memories for more than 130 years.

Her son, now in his 20s and addressing the luncheon via video out of the country, said he absolutely “fell in love” with the experience and that “Camp Stephens has truly changed my life.”

“It has turned me into a better person. Camp has become the place where I go to learn about myself, to learn who I want to be, to learn who I have been,” he said.

After his first summer, however, he was worried he might not be able to go back.

The Recios couldn’t just depend on the goodwill of their neighbourhood and social network but needed a longer-term means of support to cover the costs.

Discovering the Sunshine Fund meant that Juan Pablo could return to Camp Stephens in following years for four- and six-week canoe trips — paving the way for him to become a counsellor at the camp, which he’s done for the past four years.

“You didn’t just give him a chance to go to camp. You gave him purpose… you gave him a new family…. you gave him a confidence without limit, and you gave him his freedom,” his mother told donors in the room.

Other event speakers, including Sunshine Fund donor Bonnie Robinson and Free Press Editor Paul Samyn, recalled their own rich experiences with summer camp.

Robinson arrived with mementoes — including birch books and autograph sticks — from across the decades connected to her family’s history at summer camps dating back to the 1940s.

Samyn said his time working at Camp Wannakumbac in the 1980s allowed him to see firsthand the impact of the Sunshine Fund and why he’s proud of the role the Free Press plays in sharing stories about the program’s ongoing success.

“I don’t think that we normally think of something like the Sunshine Fund as infrastructure. We probably don’t think of the Free Press as infrastructure, but I think that’s what we are,” he said.

“The Manitoba Camping Association, the directors that are here, the Sunshine Fund, obviously — it’s a fabric. It is something that we have in this province that’s special. It is something that we have woven together.”

conrad.sweatman@freepress.mb.ca