This camp provides a safe space for kids to learn and play after Hurricane Helene

BREVARD, N.C. (AP) — The Weissmans still have much to do to recover from Hurricane Helene flooding their home last month.

They need to chase down private insurance claims and fill out applications for the Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Because the storm killed power to western North Carolina, they worry about mold.

The storm also wrecked Max Weissman's office, leaving the 45-year-old therapist with nowhere to meet patients. And it leveled the building that housed the tea company where his wife, Aviva Weissman, worked.

But the Weissmans haven’t had time to deal with any of that because like all parents their utmost priority is their children. Schools have been closed since the storm and their son Avi, 11, helped Max bleach the basement last week. Aviva briefly took their 7-year-old daughter Reyna to stay with family in South Carolina before returning home.

Like all children, both now need a routine, and to play.

On Monday morning, Weissman took Avi and Reyna to a free, pop-up day camp where dozens of kids were making bracelets, drawing, and playing oversized games of Jenga and Connect Four in a large playroom. Outside, girls bounced through a hopscotch court as a fierce basketball game heated up behind them.

The camp is hosted by the the LA-based nonprofit Project:Camp. As storms become more frequent and severe, the organization is increasingly traveling to disaster-affected communities to set up spaces where kids can process the disruption and devastation of a disaster while their parents start the long recovery process.

“I feel pretty guilty telling them all the time, ‘I’ve never dealt with this,’” said Weissman. “‘This is the first time we’re dealing with a pandemic. This is the first time we’re dealing with a flood.’ And I feel like it just keeps on.”

He lingered outside the playroom, anxiously peering through the window to check on the kids as he responded to messages from his patients.

The Brevard camp opened Monday and will run until Friday. Schools here are expected to open next week. Project:Camp is talking with nearby communities about where to set up next.

Schools can’t reopen until water is restored. For some counties, it’s still unclear when that can happen.

As of Tuesday, 15 school districts and the majority of the 21 charter schools in the region impacted by the storm remained closed, according to the state’s Department of Public Instruction. Three districts are set to resume classes Wednesday, with more to follow next week.

With Hurricane Milton approaching Florida, Project:Camp was also preparing for the possibility it would be needed there, too.

“It’s always been the case that there’s a lack of this,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “As quickly as possible, we have to begin reestablishing some level of post-disaster normalcy for children ... The necessity for play should not be understated,” he said.

Project:Camp volunteers are trained in trauma recovery. Kids participate in gratitude circles, refocusing them on positive thoughts, and do mental and emotional checks, or “Me” checks, where they rate how they feel and learn to assess their own wellbeing.

They also just have fun.

“Camp is an inherently therapeutic space for kids,” said Henry Meier, director of external affairs at the organization and leader of the Brevard pop-up. “They process through play, they process with their peers. So just having a space that they recognize, that they feel safe and comfortable in, is the best environment for them right now.”

On Tuesday morning, the Weissmans returned to Project:Camp. Max looked more relaxed. He’d gotten some things done, and the power was supposed to return that day.

When he'd picked up the kids the evening before, Reyna told him it was the “best camp ever.” Avi said it was OK, but that was enough for Max.

“In 11-year-old language," he said. "That means it was fantastic.”

Associated Press writer Gary D. Robertson contributed reporting from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Boys play basketball at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Madiera Maxwell, left, checks in her two children, nephew and niece to the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Kids eat snacks in their "cabin groups" at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Children play games at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene at the Boys and Girls Club of Transylvania County in Brevard, N.C., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

A girl plays hopscotch at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Max and Aviva Weissman stand outside the Boys and Girls Club of Transylvania County in Brevard, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 after dropping off their kids at Project Camp. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Seven-year-old Reyna Weissman, right, participates in arts and crafts, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

Boys play basketball at the Project:Camp pop-up daycamp for families impacted by Hurricane Helene in Brevard, N.C., Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gabriela Aoun Angueira)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Saturday signed legislation that averts a government shutdown heading into Christmas, bringing a final close to days of upheaval in Washington after Congress passed a bipartisan budget plan just past the deadline and rejected Donald Trump's core demand in the negotiations.

The deal funds the government at current levels through March 14 and provides $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had insisted lawmakers would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close. But the outcome at the end of a tumultuous week was uncertain after Trump had insisted the deal include an increase in the government's borrowing limit. If not, he had said, then let the closures “start now.”

Johnson's revised plan was approved 366-34, and it was passed by the Senate by a 85-11 vote after midnight. By then, the White House said it had ceased shutdown preparations.

“There will be no government shutdown,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Johnson, who had spoken to Trump after the House vote, said the compromise was "a good outcome for the country” and that the president-elect “was certainly happy about this outcome, as well.”

The final product was the third attempt from Johnson, the beleaguered speaker, to achieve one of the basic requirements of the federal government — keeping it open. The difficulties raised questions about whether Johnson will be able to keep his job, in the face of angry Republican colleagues, and work alongside Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who was calling the legislative plays from afar.

The House is scheduled to elect the next speaker on Jan. 3, 2025, when the new Congress convenes. Republicans will have an exceedingly narrow majority, 220-215, leaving Johnson little margin for error as he tries to win the speaker's gavel.

One House Republican, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, criticized Republicans for the deficit spending in the bill and said he was now “undecided” about the GOP leadership. Others are signaling unhappiness with Johnson as well.

Yet Trump's last-minute debt limit demand was almost an impossible ask, and Johnson had almost no choice but to work around that pressure. The speaker knew there wouldn’t be enough support within the slim Republican majority alone to pass any funding package because many Republican deficit hawks prefer to cut the federal government and would not allow more debt.

Instead, the Republicans, who will have full control of the White House, House and Senate in the new year, with big plans for tax cuts and other priorities, are showing they must routinely rely on Democrats for the votes needed to keep up with the routine operations of governing.

The federal debt stands at roughly $36 trillion, and the spike in inflation after the coronavirus pandemic has pushed up the government’s borrowing costs such that debt service next year will exceed spending on national security. The last time lawmakers raised the debt limit was June 2023. Rather than raise the limit by a dollar amount, lawmakers suspended the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025.

There is no need to raise that limit right now because the Treasury Department can begin using what it calls “extraordinary measures” to ensure that America does not default on its debts. Some estimate these accounting maneuvers could push the default deadline to the summer of 2025. But that’s what Trump wanted to avoid because an increase would be needed while he was president.

GOP leaders said the debt ceiling would be debated as part of tax and border packages in the new year. Republicans made a so-called handshake agreement to raise the debt limit at that time while also cutting $2.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.

It was essentially the same deal that flopped Thursday night — minus Trump’s debt demand. But it's far smaller than the original deal Johnson struck with Democratic and Republican leaders — a 1,500-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected, forcing him to start over. It was stuffed with a long list of other bills — including much-derided pay raises for lawmakers — but also other measures with broad bipartisan support that now have a tougher path to becoming law.

Trump, who has not yet been sworn into office, is showing the power but also the limits of his sway with Congress, as he intervenes and orchestrates affairs from Mar-a-Lago alongside Musk, who is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency.

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., talks with reporters after attending a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., as the House works on a spending bill to avert a shutdown of the Federal Government, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

The Capitol is pictured in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks to reporters after passing the funding bill to avert the government shutdown at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., celebrates as the Senate begins voting on the government funding bill just in time to meet the midnight deadline, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)