[seestheday]

What state/city? I'm assuming you live in the US. I live in Canada and I've never heard of a poor kids childcare of free summer camp paid for by the city even here.

People talking about saving money by not spending money on clothes and toys really don't know what they're talking about. Brand new clothes and toys today are super cheap compared to what they were when I was a kid. For example, I just bought some brand new baby shoes and shirts on sale for $2 at the grocery store. If I was poor it would cost me more in bus fare to get to the used clothing store than I would have saved had I just bought stuff new at the grocery store. The biggest cost for me _by_far_ is childcare and summer camps.

[kidsthesedays]

Maybe you gotta live in a low income area. I went to the YMCA, YWCA, Boys and Girls Club, some place that is run by a couple nuns and sponsored by a charity... I think we may have gotten subsidies from somewhere though? Honestly I am not sure, I just know that they were cheap and that's where all the poor kids went (including me).

These places were pretty friggin boring though, just a bunch of sitting around doing not much of anything except playing with yarn with minimal supervision.

The "free camp" (as we called it) was especially boring.