As the summer break approaches, kids of all ages prepare for activities and adventure. One of the popular activities of kids of all ages is to enroll in summer camp. Camp For all is one such camp for children and adults with challenging illnesses and special needs. Nestled in a small town of Burton, Texas, this unique camp has been changing lives for over 30 years. The goal at Camp For All is to ensure that all the children and adults that come are able to experience all the activities that they offer without any barriers or anything stopping them. Their purpose is to help children discover life and find hope and happiness. By being in an area with people that have similar viewpoints as one, it is easier to feel more involved, and thus happier. The facility has been built in such a way that children and adults are able to enjoy themselves and the activities offered with wheelchair access and many other contributions.
When I visited the campground with my brother, there was a lot to experience. Ranging from wheelchair basketball to horseback riding, where volunteers help mount and dismount specially abled children onto horses, the camp offers many fun things for the children. They also have relatively shallow pools where again volunteers are in the water with the specially abled child, and they give rides by pushing and pulling them on a tube to give kids the experience of water tubing. Camp For All offers so many fun activities that truly brings joy to a child’s life.
For the horseback riding, there were many spina bifida children that needed assistance to mount and dismount the horses in order to have fun. The volunteers then take the horses and guide them around the stable area, and walk around with the child and the horse, ensuring that the child is having a fun time, thus providing them an opportunity to enjoy horse riding in the outdoors. Seeing the smiles on so many faces really brings a lot of joy to ones heart and inspires the volunteers to continue what they are doing and to continue making a difference.
Another thing that volunteers can assist with is helping the children with arts and crafts, including painting. As we have seen from many of VOSAP’s Art from Heart competitions, specially abled children do not allow anything to stop them and have amazing skills that should be shown and expressed to the world. The children at Camp For All have wonderful abilities, and most importantly, they are enjoying themselves and having a fun time with their new friends.
For the zip line, or giant swing, there are special harnesses needed to ride it, and it suspends the child from above, where responsible volunteers then make sure that everything is in check and the harnesses are properly tightened. The child then has the opportunity to experience swings like many specially abled children do not have the opportunity for. The swing consists of two large and tall posts with a huge rope that is between the two. The child is then suspended from the rope using a harness that is wrapped around the child tightly. Once the safety procedures are ran through, the child is then released, which sparks joy inside of so many children.
Camp For All is all about inclusivity no matter where you are from, what condition you may have, or how you got it. At Camp For All, everybody is the same at heart. The mission is to create an environment where there are no barriers, and campers of all abilities can go to enjoy and “discover life”. Social relationships play an important role in mental health and well-being in persons with disabilities. By being at a summer camp with a bunch of other children, or even adults, there is an immediate sense of inclusivity, and the wanting to be like everyone else disappears because of a mutual understanding. Being at camp opens one’s eyes to so many different people and how many of these young children find happiness within the smallest things. These kids will end up growing up to become amazing leaders with a minimalistic mindsets, and they will have the power to do whatever they put their minds to.
