Camp With a Vision
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Camp With a Vision |
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A newspaper article about the Florida Lions Camp published in the Palm Beach Post on August 29, 1999. | ||
| A Canoe gliding. The Sun’s warm rays. The touch of a new friend. | |||
| Story by Michael Browning | |||
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LAKE WALES
—
The warmth of summer,
but not its light reaches the faces and hearts of certain children here, by the
oak-groved
shores of Tiger Lake, whose blue ripples are invisible to them.
Many of the children are blind.
For the past
25
years, thanks to the charity of the Lion’s Club, blind and mentally handicapped
children have been able to experience
the lazy carefree delight of summer
camp as millions of American children do: The pillow fights, the canoe trips,
the hayrides, the candy bars and sodas at the canteen, the arts and crafts, the
cool of evening out in the country, the talent contests and songs, the sweet
sleep at the end of a full day.
“We
get parents calling up every day at first, asking if the kids are homesick,”
said program director Sara Hundere. “And we have to tell them: ‘Nope, sorry.
They’re having a grand old time.”’
“It’s a big break for the kids and a big break for the parents
too,” said Barb Cage, camp director. “It can be very wearing, taking care of a
handicapped child, 24 hours a day.”
As she speaks, a gangly teenager named Adam lazily rolls over down the back of a
sofa and lies there, a vague half-smile on his face, wiggling his arms and legs
with sleepy, disconnected abandon, as if he were bathing in the balmy August
air.
“Adam! Adam!” his two counselors call. Adam is a handful. He makes sudden loud,
bellowing noises, enjoys being spun in a chair, will suddenly bounce up and want
to go somewhere and have to be led back patiently. Two
counselors are assigned to him at all times, and
others jump in as required, heading him off, shepherding him back to
where he is
supposed to be. Adam is open to
suggestions,
an
obedient
and
docile boy
when he’s reminded
what to do, or not do. Adam grabs a counselor’s bare leg in mid-calf. |
She doesn’t
This is the second year of a special program, “Siblings Week,” at the camp. Many
of the handicapped children
have sisters or brothers who aren’t disabled. At home, frazzled parents often
rely on these siblings as 24-hour-a-day care givers, entrusting them to take
care of the brother or sister.
“This can be very hard on them. They’re just kids,” Cage said. “Here at the camp
we encourage them to have fun with their siblings, not be in charge of them.
It’s a relief for them. By the end of the week, they’re laughing and playing
like normal kids.”
Counselor Anna Vogel, from Johannesburg, South Africa, is a striking, red-haired
young woman who leads the children in puppet-play and songs during a
late-morning activity.
The children sing from chairs arranged in a circle, and a whole spectrum of
feelings and capacities is gradually revealed, like notes on a musical scale.
The quicker-witted children find it a bit schmaltzy and start tussling on the
floor. One throws a stuffed animal to another.
But some of the blind children are entranced, even exalted, by the music. One
young fellow named Jacob seems to lean forward into the melody, repeating
snatches of the verses eagerly, with heroic dedication. He simply loves the
music. He’s having fun at summer camp. “You see all different levels amongst these children,” Vogel said afterward. “They get into it. They do get things: They definitely pick up on the energy a counselor gives off. We had a puppet show last week, and one child was improvising his story every time he performed. You never knew where he was going to go with it, but it was marvelous to watch his mind unfold. When something like that happens, it makes your day.” |
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Florida Lions Camp
2819 Tiger Lake Road Lake Wales, FL 33898 863-696-1948
website managed by Kristen Frontera KFrontera@gmail.com |
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