AURORA, Colo. (AP) - With all the focus on handicap-assisted sports, the real opportunity afforded by Junior Wheelchair Sports Camp is that it simply allows kids to be kids.
“It’s a magical place,” said Kalyn Heffernan, who first attended the camp two decades ago and has since been a longtime volunteer.
The camp, held annually at the beginning of June at Aurora Central High School, has been providing a week of wheelchair sports activities for 34 years, giving all school-aged children from kindergartners to high-schoolers the chance to do everything from kayaking to archery to basketball - all for free.
It had a profound impact on Heffernan, now a hip-hop artist who named her group Wheelchair Sports Camp. She even likes to wear old shirts from camp when she’s performing her acclaimed, avant-garde style of rap. “I just want to be a camper for the rest of my life,” Heffernan said.
She’s not alone. Elizabeth Buscnell, 19, started her freshmen year of college in San Francisco this semester and is too old to attend as a camper this year, but still made sure to make it home in time to volunteer.
“I found it really empowering as a kid seeing what the counselors could do in their wheelchairs,” she said. “I learned how to pop wheelies my first year.”
Buscnell started coming to camp six years ago, where she met her friend Bryce Parascand. Her and Parascand have been close ever since, hanging out and often exchanging friendly teases with one another.
“We all pick on each other, but it’s all fun and games,” Parascand said.
Parascand gets rides to camp from his friend, volunteer camp counselor Christian Skari, who reflected on how the camp benefits even the counselors who volunteer, teaching something beyond empathy.
“I think (Wheelchair Sports Camp) is really good for the counselors,” he said. “It normalizes something that is not always common.”
Skari said the camp makes it easier to understand things from the perspective of those who are wheelchair bound. He shared a story about a time, not long ago, when he saw a stranger fall out of his wheelchair, and how he was able to help better because of his experience with camp.
Ashley Hovey, another counselor who first attended camp, agrees with Skari in that the camp helps take the “kid gloves” off of how they treat people with disabilities. Hovey said the camp gives kids a chance to be themselves and have fun, when most people treat them so delicately the rest of the time. As Hovey speaks, a group of children in the gym are illustrating her point by way of a rousing game of dodgeball, resulting in some significant strikes as kids hit each hard with the ball.
“(Most) people would freak if they saw that,” Hovey said.
But, she said, that shouldn’t be the case. For instance, Hovey said her spina bifida doesn’t hurt more as a result of dodgeball. For the most part, she said, there’s not a lot separating her and her wheelchair-bound campers from fully functioning people.
“(This) is the only place where these kids just get to be kids,” she said.
Robin Palmer volunteers when her son goes to camp. She said she appreciates the education side of camp, and how it helps give parents and families ideas of how to keep their children more active.
“You don’t have as many limits as you thought you had,” she said. “You realize that there are more athletic opportunities for them to work with.”
Palmer said she also enjoys the independence the camp gives her son. She is close if he needs her, but mostly she just lets him play on his own. Palmer’s proud of the confidence the camp helped to build in her otherwise shy boy.
“It pushes them to be a little more independent than they would be otherwise,” she said.
FUNDING THE FUN
Among the biggest obstacles facing the camp are funding and transportation.
Camp founder Mary Carpenter has a lofty name for those who help keep the lights on.
“We have angels,” she said.
Buses, basketball wheelchairs and most of the equipment are all provided by Carpenter, who keeps the camp free and accessible through an assortment of grants and donations. Carpenter even provides transportation from area high schools for families who commute to the camp from out of state, while those campers from Aurora are picked up at their home.
Transportation is one of the camp’s major expenses, but Carpenter understands it probably wouldn’t happen at all without that assistance.
“Some of the kids wouldn’t get here without the buses,” Carpenter said.
For instance, Parascand said one of the reasons he gets a ride from Skari because the volunteer is the only person who has a big enough trunk to fit Parascand’s wheelchair.
Beginning as a physical therapist, Carpenter started the camp after realizing that children in wheelchairs didn’t have much in the way of physical outlets. She noted that Special Olympics are for people with mental disabilities, often in addition to physical maladies, and do not include people who are solely physically disabled. When Carpenter started the camp in the early 1980s, the Paralympics had not yet been founded.
Nearly 35 years later, it’s not just the cause but the effect that continues to drive Carpenter each and every year.
“The way they just light up,” Palmer said. “That’s what it is all about.”
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Information from: The Aurora Sentinel, https://www.aurorasentinel.com/
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