[Sportsandrec] recreation at camps or centers

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi,
BTW, to clarify the school for the blind was a summer camp.
I did not attend a school for the blind for school.

What I was saying was at the school for the blind, we enjoyed playing on the 
playground.
But in public school with sighted kids, while I certainly went to recess,  I 
did not feel as included with other kids.

Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Ashley Bramlett
Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2013 10:09 PM
To: Sports and Recreation for the Blind Discussion List
Subject: [Sportsandrec] recreation at camps or centers

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
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