Beigel Fund Sends 50 Kids Off to Summer Camp

Fifty young Suffolk County residents climbed onboard a bus and headed off to sleep-away summer camp Sunday, funded by the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund.

Beigel’s mother, Linda Beigel, who lives in Dix Hills, said the fund raised $78,000 to cover camp costs for the kids, ages 7-12.

Beigel, a teacher who protected several of his students, was one of 17 people who died  as a gunman fired on students and staff while he stalked the halls and classrooms of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in 2018.

The geography teacher loved summer camps, his mother said. Since his death, Beigel and her husband, Michael Schulman, have worked to assist children and lessen gun violence.

“Camp was Scott’s happy place,” his mother said. “He went from the age of 7 and he was murdered at the age of 35, and he would still be going back to camp today. He actually went into teaching so he could go to camp year after year. At camp, they’re going to learn the true sense of community, they’re going to learn to trust, they’re going to meet other children and adults from different backgrounds and they’re going to learn how to get along with everybody.

“They are going to learn skills that they would have never had the opportunity to learn if it were not for this fund.”

Supporters, including former State Sen. Jim Gaughran, Suffolk Legislators Tom Donnelly and Rebecca Sanin, Democratic congressional candidate John Avlon, Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon and Huntington deputy parks supervisor Walter Edwards were on hand to greet the kids as they arrived toting suitcases and bags for their two-week adventure at Camp Herrlich in Patterson.

The fund sponsors kids to go to camps in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Massachusetts.