Gold Star Sailing camp in Newport empowers children of fallen soldiers

NEWPORT – Col. Patrick Powers said when his children were little, they had trouble understanding why their dad was going away to Newport for a week every summer to go sailing with other people’s kids instead of his own.

Powers, a fit, clean-cut retiree, whose excellent posture and razor-precise haircut hint at his 25-year career as a Green Beret, explained to them that even though the kids at Gold Star Sailing get to spend a week on Narragansett Bay during the absolute peak of the summer sailing season, their common bond is a club nobody would ever choose to join.

Powers has been coming from Annapolis to run the camp in Newport for over a decade now, using sailing lessons to provide a social and recreational opportunity to high school kids from Gold StarFamilies – kids whose parents died while serving in the U.S. military.

He spoke glowingly of Newport as a sailing destination, but maybe even more so of the network of local institutions and community members in the City-by-the-Sea who wholeheartedly support Gold Star Sailing’s mission.

“The mayor’s office has embraced us, Newport Yacht Club has embraced us, the National Guard has embraced us, Salve Regina, Sail Newport, the Coast Guard Station,” Powers said. “The whole community has opened their arms to us – the veterans’ community, the sailing community and the entire city.”

The campers come from all over the country to stay in a dorm at Salve Regina, enjoy a slate of recreational, cultural and historical activities every day, and go sailing every afternoon. This year there are 18 of them, ranging in age from 14 to 19 and pretty evenly split both amongst boys and girls and amongst new and returning campers.

These Gold Star kids are often the only ones in their immediate social circles who know the experience of losing a parent who was serving in the military, but for a week in Newport they are surrounded by peers who understand exactly what they are going through without any need for awkward explanations. More than 200 teenagers have come through the program since it started in 2012. A second annual camp in Florida has also been established.

Powers is adamant about one point, Gold Star Sailing is not a grief camp. If anything, it is a joy camp, allowing teenagers who are carrying a heavy emotional weight through a turbulent time in their personal development to connect with each other and connect with themselves while also building confidence and leadership skills at the helm of a sailboat.

“They’re all going through the same grief process, the same grief journey,” said Powers. “We want to get them together to have a good time, first of all, and have an adventure. We don’t want to focus on the grief. We want to share the beauty and joy of the water; sailing on a boat up here is just magical, so showing a little magic to these kids is cool all by itself.”

One day of the week the kids crew and take turns steering 40-foot sailboats courtesy of the generous members of the Newport Yacht Club, who have been volunteering their vessels and their time to the program for over 10 years. The rest of the week they pair up on Sail Newport’s fleet of J22s, embarking out of Fort Adams every day and weaving their way through the boat traffic and mooring fields of Newport Harbor.

Bella Jaikaran has been coming from her home in San Diego, California, to sail in Newport every summer since she was 14, following the footsteps of her older brother Dominic. Now 18 years old and preparing to start her college career at LSU in the fall, she is back this year as a counselor instead of a camper.

Jaikaran said her favorite event at the camp is the annual clam and lobster boil, which is donated and cooked every year by Col. Tom Heaney, U.S. Army (ret.). In addition to being the former commodore of the Newport Yacht Club, Heaney is a former Green Beret like Powers and a veteran of the Vietnam War.

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“I think when I first came to this camp I was very shy and naïve, and over the years as I started attending more camps and meeting new people, I kind of found myself,” Jaikaran told The Daily News. “This is my first year that (Col. Powers) asked me to come back as a counselor, and it’s a really great experience to give back and show my leadership skills.”

After she took off to join the campers for an afternoon swim at Fort Adams, Powers leaned in conspiratorially, clearly proud of Jaikaram for her confidence while speaking with the media. “One of the things we don’t talk a lot about is leadership development; she was a very shy young lady, and her brother too,” he said. “I’ve watched them grow up over the last few years, right, and watching them grow has been really cool.”