When the Y Chief Operating Officer Kathleen Walsh was at the local Department of Children and Family Services office for a meeting in June, she saw children sitting in the hallways coloring or reading. After asking a few questions, she quickly learned that these children spend their days in the DCF office after being removed from their homes. DCF funding for camps or day programs had run out, so the children had nowhere to go while they wait to be placed with a foster family. The Y immediately took action, offering these children space at any our YMCA camps or childcare programs for free. The Y provided an equivalent of 16 weeks of free service to children ranging in age from 8 months to 14 years. Children who had no place to live and would have spent their days in the hallways of the DCF offices now had the chance to have fun, play outside and make new friends. In a time of great stress in the lives of these kids, most of whom had been removed from their homes in the middle of the night, the Y was a constant and safe place. In response to one seven year old boy’s week at camp, the DCF program director said, “It takes a village to meet the needs of the most vulnerable we serve. The opportunity to be at camp this week is reinforcement that he is valued and cared about.”