Monday, Jul. 12, 1954
Fun with a Purpose
Morning is here. The board is spread. Thanks be to God who gives us bread.
So sang the children one day last week in the dining hall of Camp Wawbeek. Then chairs scraped and banged as the campers sat down to breakfast. But for these children, sitting down at table was no ordinary matter. Fifteen of them were already seated--in wheelchairs. Others carefully placed their crutches beside them on the floor before they edged onto their chairs.
Camp Wawbeek, in the Wisconsin River Valley, is no ordinary children's camp. It is one of about 45 camps across the U.S. sponsored by the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults. This summer more than 7,000 children will attend the camps. Total operating cost this season: $2,000,000, largely financed by the sale of Easter seals.
No Mollycoddling. Camp Wawbeek, a typical camp in the group, has 80 children, aged 8 to 14 (to be replaced later in the summer by adults and older children). Half of them are polio victims, 16 have cerebral palsy, eight have muscular dystrophy, and the rest suffer from a variety of crippling ailments. Special care was taken in constructing new buildings: all but one are flush with the ground, doors are wider than normal to accommodate wheelchairs and spraddled crutches, there are railings along porches and in bathrooms. Showers, too, are adjustable for children in wheelchairs.
Camp Wawbeek is designed to make the children less isolated by their handicaps. A registered nurse watches each child for signs of illness, and five doctors are on call. The camps are chiefly for fun--most physical therapy is done in the winter in a dozen centers operated by the Wisconsin Association for the Disabled.
Camp Wawbeek's 32 staff members are carefully trained, and they are warned against mollycoddling. Explains the association's Executive Director Kenneth Svee: "We want it to be just a little bit rough, because society later on will be rough, too. What we want to do is give them the feeling that they belong in a group for their own sake, not because of their ailments."
No Gloom. There is little that is gloomy or institutional about the camp. Sports are encouraged but never forced. A boy in a wheelchair is pitcher in a softball game; another on crutches plays first base. Most popular sport: swimming, with "hiking"--on crutches or in wheelchairs--a close second. The $80 cost per child [for a two-week stay] is split between the state association and the child's family or sponsor. The beneficial effects of these investments are soon apparent.
P:Wesley Roseman, 11, twisted by a congenital deformity of the spine, at first played a solitary game of croquet. He complained that no one would play with him. Soon he learned the game's rules, found some partners, smilingly started to talk about what he wants to be when he grows up (astronomer or archaeologist).
P:Pauline Schleifer, 10, was stricken with polio only seven months ago. Encumbered by a huge, white leather neck brace, she walked quietly about by herself until she found company: another girl, confined to a wheelchair, whom she could help.
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of life in Camp Wawbeek is the way in which youngsters strive to bear their plight without self-consciousness. One morning two little girls were chasing a little boy, a polio victim, whom they both liked. "Do you think he'll run away?" said one. "No," giggled the other, without a touch of cruelty. "He can't."
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