MANCHESTER - The Southern Vermont Committee of the Fresh Air Fund will be welcoming a small group of New York City children as they arrive in Manchester Center on June 29.

Volunteer host families share their summers for up to two weeks with Fresh Air children, ages six to 18, who leave behind the city streets to run barefoot in the grass or see the stars at night. Some youngsters are leaving home for the first time, while others are returning to visit the same host families for consecutive summers.

The Fresh Air Fund is an independent, not-for-profit agency that has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877. Each summer, over 4,000 children visit volunteer host families in rural, suburban and small town communities across 13 states from Virginia to Maine and Canada.

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