[Sportsandrec] recreation at camps or centers

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi all,

I’ve thought about the various camps I went for blind kids and general camps along with the retreats I attended with my Methodist church youth group.
It was a mixed bag in terms of participation and feeling included.
I’m sure we’ve all been to camps or centers. What is your experience with recreation?
At Carroll center they have a sailing program and I believe biking as well.
At Cleveland Sight center, I just read about various activities and was impressed.
They have hiking, biking, and line dancing for the active activities. For the more light sedentary ones, they have art and sewing classes such as crocheting. 

I’ve had a number of experiences and will mention some. First, at camps for the blind.
I was at the youth in transition program, yit, at carroll center for the blind in Newton MA.
It feels like only a few years back, but actually I was there in 2001.

We had clubs and activities after class. We could pick from about four or five options for each session, afternoon and evening.
So this was ten different things, but I’ll mention a few.
At night, I chose to go canoeing. It was pretty fun. Staff did not seem overly concerned, they just instructed us students on putting on life preservers.  I remember the canoe feeling unbalanced and feared we might capsize sometimes, but this did not happen in my canoe.
Another actitity we did was beep ball in the afternoon.

At the va school for the blind, I had some fond memories of playing on the playground like all other kids would and feeling fairly included versus at school recess I was not. I played alone usually. At the school for the blind, we used the seesaw together and rode a mary go round. 

Now, I attended a camp for two summers sponsored by the Baptists.  My parents were protective, but I was able to go because my teacher of the vision impaired, TVI, got a notice that this camp was inviting blind and vision impaired kids to go and that they would provide guides.
I had a guide and she did assist me in following the fast crowd of girls as we went to various activities and buildings. But otherwise she was in the background meaning she sat back and let me interact with the other girls and participate by myself in activities. I participated in the pool games with the other girls.
We played with balls and some games which I cannot remember their names.
We played this circle game called Seniorita. Its spanish for girl, btw.
This was one of the few times in my childhood when I felt included in activities, not on the sidelines when I was with other sighted children or youth.

Various camps for the blind, including NFB centers, are known for having recreation activities for us.
I’m curious to know what they are and what adaptations were made. I know about sports only for blind people like beep baseball and goal ball, but it would be nice to hear about mainstream sports played at camps.

As summer ends, I just was thinking about camp activities and thought that I might have missed out on some being vision impaired.
But, I’m sure there are people who were  more included and also participating in activities at camps specific to blind kids.

Hope this gets discussion going.

Ashley