AUBURN — A small group of New York City children will travel to Auburn to spend one or two weeks with volunteer host families in Lewiston, Auburn, Wilton, Greene, Portland, Casco, Falmouth and Oxford.

The children will arrive at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8, at the Fireside Inn and Suites, 1777 Washington St.

The Central Maine Committee will welcome the children. Volunteer host families will share their summer for up to two weeks with Fresh Air children, ages 7 to 18, who leave the city streets to run barefoot in the grass or see the stars at night. Some children 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, nonprofit agency that has provided free summer experiences to more than 1.8 million New York City children from low-income communities since 1877.

Each summer, thousands of children visit volunteer host families in rural, suburban and small town communities along the East Coast and southern Canada through the Fresh Air Fund’s Friendly Towns Program.

Fresh Air teen Priscilla Galindo, center, of the Bronx enjoys some quality summer time with host family members Darlene, left, and Jenna Ginsberg at their Martin Road farm in Rumford in 2015.

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