ReCreate Yourself At Camp ReCreation

CB students find love in a hopeful place.

Camp ReCreation is a week long summer camp for people with various mental and physical disabilities. Faye Messner (’15) and I departed on an early Sunday morning last summer to the oblivion of what exactly camp was. But we all shared one common idea:

“The goal of the camp is to provide the campers with a fun vacation, but also to give their caretakers and families a much needed break,” explains the heartfelt Faye.

It may be hard to see how such an emotional and challenging experience could be seen as enjoyable, but several students and participants found it to be powerful and life changing.

From Faye’s experiences along with my own,  “Camp Moments” are what make the entire week worth while.

Faye and I both found our “Camp Moment” at the talent show. This is an event where campers can show off their talents to everyone in the whole camp. The talent that captured our hearts was when Keith,a quadriplegic, sang to his girlfriend of ten years Brooke.

“The story of Keith at the talent show and his song, ‘Let it Be’ to Brooke will be in my memory forever,” Faye says.  “I can’t even talk about it without tearing up.”

“I have seen fine examples of true love in my life, but never have I seen someone so devoted to the happiness of another person — even when they only get to talk on the phone for 10 minutes and see each other three times in a year,” she adds.

I am not an emotional person; however, I have never been so struck with such uncontrollable emotion. This had to be one of the best moments of both mine and Faye’s lives.

If you want to experience this life changing event, Camp is easy to sign up for and it even counts for service hours for CB.

“I fell in love with the place from a video they showed us,” Faye says on how she got involved with Camp.

Coming from both mine and Faye’s experience I encourage all students to go sign up to volunteer for Camp ReCreation this summer. I promise that you won’t regret it.