While one group of children made their own ice cream, others honed their dance skills, and still others shot hoops on the parking lot pavement.

The children, spending part of this summer at a camp experience provided by St. Paul Baptist Church in Montclair, are residents of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailer park in Baton Rouge, La., whose more than 1,500 residents came mostly from the lower ninth ward of New Orleans that was evacuated during Hurricane Katrina.

Volunteers from nearby Congregation Shomrei Emunah are assisting in the project, spurred by a partnership between the church and the synagogue that began with a friendship between the church's Rev. Michael Cox and Shomrei Emunah's Rabbi E. Noach Shapiro.

Members have attended each other's worship services, and shared a joint Passover seder held on the second night of the holiday.

When Shomrei Emunah congregants learned about the camp project, said church member Dr. Gwen Ames, "they said, — We should do it with you.' We hadn't totally embraced it yet, but for Shomrei Emunah, it was like a runaway train, and it took off."

For two weeks, 20 children from the trailer camp known as Renaissance Village are enjoying sports and honing their skills in reading, writing, and math with volunteers like Shomrei's Adam Purdy, 16.

"They're just like any other kids," said Jerilyn Margulies of Montclair, another of Shomrei Emunah's volunteers. "I'm interested in helping, and I'm a teacher."

One of the younger children, Royneisha Royal, nine, playing basketball when a visitor approached, said she thought the camp was "fun," especially the math and reading components in the morning. But she acknowledged that she missed her mother and her PlayStation game and was ready to go home.

Faith Shepherd, 11, rattled off a list of activities she had participated in, including skating and jumping rope. She acknowledged she was scared when she boarded the plane for New Jersey. Then again, she said, "I was excited when I first heard about this. It's something I hadn't done before and it's been fun."

She was particularly looking forward to an outing for a manicure with her host mother later that day. If she were home, she said, "I'd be inside playing with my mom." Thinking about all she's been through, she said, "It makes me sad. But this makes it better."

St. Paul's efforts on behalf of these children dates back to 2005, when Ames saw a news report about children living in Renaissance Village who couldn't go out to play because it was too dangerous.

"I felt we had to do something for them," she said. Ames runs an after-school program at the church called the Study to Excel Program.

She brought her concern not just to the church but to the kids in its after-school program. Together they brainstormed and came up with a Summer Camp in a Book Bag project. Last summer, they packed 600 book bags with games and supplies, and Ames headed down to Renaissance Village with a team of 25 volunteers. When they finished, Ames said, "We left feeling empty. We were just scratching the surface of deep-seated problems that were becoming buried as a result of Hurricane Katrina. We were happy with what we did, but we knew we needed to do more."

St. Paul's Rev. Cox said, "The children continue to need to know that people care and haven't been forgotten. They're very resilient, hardy kids and families, but in a lot of ways, our country has forgotten them. We've moved on. There are things going on but they are happening incredibly slowly for most of them. The vast majority of our effort is offering a human face of caring to them."

The church continued investing in the children with a yearlong literacy project providing books and children's author visits, as well as record-keeping technology to ensure that another tragedy will not erase the children's accomplishments in school. A $3,000 grant from the Points of Light Foundation funded these projects. Additionally, the church sent doctors and nurses to care for the community.

And then summer approached again.

"I realized we were back where we started, scratching the surface. The children would be back in their trailer parks for the summer," said Ames. That's when she hatched the summer camp idea.

So far, the church has invested $150,000 plus many volunteer hours in their efforts on behalf of Renaissance Village.

The partnership with the synagogue has added another dimension.

"Members of Shomrei were hungry and thirsty for more hands-on opportunities," said Cox. "This provided them with that. And it gave a different flavor to the camp. It gave the children from Baton Rouge a wider scope of 'wow, more than just St. Paul cares about me.'" Shomrei congregants helped run the afternoon activities.

As Ames considered the partnership, she said, "The tragedy is over, but its far-reaching effects are not. There's a Jewish tradition to repair the world, and these volunteers came in lovingly, with the intent to repair the world. This is what the beloved community is all about."