[blindkid] Blind Camps

Sat Jun 5 15:12:54 UTC 2010

You had a different experience than my children.
Blessings,
Sue H.

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Heather <craney07 at rochester.rr.com> wrote:

> Well, the second sounds nice, but the first you mentioned is one of the
> horrific ones I went to, and many of my peers suffered through.  I got into
> a screaming match with a counsilor once because I wasn't particularly good
> at the long jump, and on my first try I jumped and landed in a heap and
> started lauging.  I said "Ok, that sucked, let's try that again, shall we?"
> in a good humor.  She instantly jumped on me saying "That was fine."  "Erm,
> no it wasn't, but I'll try it again."  "No, you have to stop having such a
> negative attitude."  "Lady, it sucked, it's no big deal, I'm not upset about
> it, but it really and truly sucked.  I didn't go hardly anywhere and I
> landed on my butt, so what can I do to make it better?"  "If you don't think
> that you can do it then you will never be able to."  "Uh, I do think I can
> do it, eventually, but I need some pointers, what should I do differently?"
> "Well, if you are just going to insist on putting yourself down then maybe
> you should give the next girl a chance."  Another counsilor got angry with
> me because they were having kids throw plates, glass plates, from the dining
> hall on the grass, because starting right off with a diskus is sort of heavy
> for small hands.  I expressed my concern that I would throw it too far and
> break it on the parking lot, and the man assured me that I wouldn't, that if
> I did it wouldn't be a problem, and then advised me to give it a light toss.
> I did, it overshot the other campers, the grass and smashed to pieces on the
> parkinglot.  He yelled at me telling me that "You did that on purpose.  You
> can see can't you?  You are just acting like you can't see all that much.
> You think you're funny don't you?"  When this man should have known full
> well, that I was a medium high partial, and that I had tried to warn him
> that I was afraid it might hit the pavement and not the grass.  My first
> year when I was seven, a deaf blind girl who was pretty low functioning,
> either because of mental retardation, or improper management by the
> counsilors or improper socialization and education by the parents, came up
> to me where I was sitting in the dining hall, grabbed my bowl of very hot
> soup and dumped it into my lap after grabbing various things off of the
> table and throwing them, including my silverware, my brandnew diskman and my
> plate.  It hurt like hell and my diskman shattered.  I was seven for crying
> out loud, so I did what a lot of normal seven year olds would have done.  I
> grabbed her and started yelling at her and shuvved her.  She didn't bleed,
> no bones were broken, she didn't hear the mean things I said, no clothing
> was ripped or property of hers damaged.  All that she got was me grabbing
> her and pushing her down onto her but on the floor, and I was half her size.
> They were going to kick me out for that.  My stomach and legs didn't get
> seen for the nasty blistering oozing burns for at least a half an hour of
> them lecturing me while I kept insisting that "It hurt" and "she burned me"
> and "I need a bandaid or something.  Finally, a girl who was diabetic and
> had special concintrated sugar disks that were for if her blood sugar
> dropped was being hastled by a counsilor, who was not aware of her
> condition, for "not sharing her candy" when one of the low functioning
> camperrs heard her grab the bag out of her drawr and take one because she
> had tested low and was feeling faint.  Here she was, about ready to pass
> out, trying to politely and calmly explain to the counsilor that they were
> medically neccessary and not candy.  I was trying to tell the counsilor that
> the candies were not ordinary candies, but she was starting to give one to
> her camper, the MR one.  I grabbed the bag out of her hand, made sure that
> the older girl had taken one, then went into the hall to find her counsilor
> who knew of her condition, and only then did the first counsilor stop
> insinuating that my friend was selfish and childish, but neither of us ever
> got an apology.  It's not the indiviedual events, it's the attitude that I
> had a problem with.  I will look up the second camp you mentiooned, since it
> was more of a normal summer camp experience.  Thanks.  Wasn't planning on
> pointing individual fingers at camps, but since it came up, I thought I sort
> of had to say something.
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jessica" <jess28 at samobile.net>
> To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 4:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Blind Camps
>
>
> SUNY Brockport I believe runs Camp Abilities. They run the camp to give
>> students in their Adaptive Physical Education Program experience working
>> with students with Visual Impairments and prehaps other physical
>> disabilities.  When I was between the ages of about 6-12 or 13 I attended
>> Easter Seals camp called Camp Hemlock in Connecticut I don't exactly
>> remember where in Connecticut the camp is located. It was just at normal
>> overnight summer camp.
>> Jessica
>>
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