Trying to send all kids to summer camp

Remembering his own lazy days of summer spent at an upstate camp, Rockville Centre native Rob DelGaudio is working on a fundraising effort that he hopes will help give other kids that same opportunity.

DelGaudio, a music teacher at the Wampus Elementary School in Armonk, N.Y., is working on an album titled “Campfire Songs.” Proceeds from the album will be donated to three charities that help send kids to camp: SCOPE, The National Inclusion Project and A BroaderWay.

“[This project] is really a combination of my love for music and wanting to take on another music project, and my fondness for the summer camp experience and wanting to do something to give other kids the great experience I had,” DelGaudio said.
DelGaudio moved to Rockville Centre when he was 9, and came up through the RVC schools. “I really owe my music to Rockville Centre,” he said. “Where I grew up in Queens, there was no music program. It wasn’t until I came to Rockville Centre that I had the opportunity to study an instrument and excel at it.”

DelGaudio spent his summers at the Luzerne Music Center in upstate New York, about a half hour west of Glens Falls. “I was supposed to go for two weeks, but I begged my parents to stay for an entire session,” DelGaudio said.

After that first year, he went back every year he could. He was a camper for three years, and then kept working for six or seven years as a counselor. Today, he sits on the camp’s Board of Directors.

“There are a special breed of people who live for camps all year round,” he said. “And they live for those kids. Your real time is your time at camp: that’s the main season, and the rest of the year is the off-season.”

DelGaudio started a crowdfunding campaign on the website IndieGoGo to help him raise the $10,000 he needs to complete the album. Once the album is complete, all of the proceeds will go towards helping send under-privileged kids to camp.