The air they breathe

July 15, 2026

By Emily Glick, Keval Amol Dave, Sana Tahir, Amber Luo

After school, Camden LeBlanc runs around the corner from his apartment building to his favorite neighborhood playground: the Palmer Fire Department. He knocks on the garage door and the firefighters welcome him. They know him well as the high-energy six-year-old with a mischievous smile.

“I have a paper plane!” Camden shouts, as he dashes to climb the fire truck. Some days the firefighters put him to work, teaching him to roll up hoses and change the station laundry. But mostly he’s there to be around the people he wants to be like when he grows up.

Camden has always been an active kid. He does karate and spends as much time as he can outside. “Whether it’s raining or snowing or whatever, he doesn’t care” said his dad, Jonathan LeBlanc.

But three years ago, Camden got sick and Jonathan noticed his son was having significant trouble breathing. They went to the emergency room, and Camden was eventually diagnosed with asthma.

In the months after that visit, Jonathan found himself trying to learn a system he didn’t yet understand — balancing inhalers and nebulizer treatments, watching for flare-ups, and worrying about what might trigger them.

At a follow-up appointment, someone handed him a form and asked if he wanted help making his home safer for Camden’s asthma. Jonathan filled it out.

“I don’t know a lot of stuff,” he said. “I’m a dad with two kids. When it comes to dealing with certain stuff like at the doctor’s office, sometimes I get intimidated.”

Not long after, a team showed up at their apartment in Palmer, a town 20 minutes east of Springfield — a city with one of the highest asthma rates in the United States.

“They did the rugs, they gave us air purifiers, and they gave us a floor AC unit. And they gave us a new vacuum,” Jonathan said. “They really helped us out.”

Revitalize Community Development Corporation, the Springfield-based organization that helped the LeBlancs, has been doing home remediations for nearly a decade — sending trained staff into homes to help families manage asthma triggers like mold, dust, old carpeting, and poor ventilation. Through their Healthy Homes initiative, the organization provides education, HEPA vacuums, air purifiers, mattress protectors, and home repairs like pest control and flooring replacement.

In 2024, Revitalize CDC received $1 million through the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Government to Government grant program, allowing the organization to reach families that didn’t qualify for insurance-based programs but still needed assistance.

Six months into the grant, it was terminated.

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