For children of parents with cancer, spending a week at Camp Kesem is one of their favorite weeks of the year.
“These are kids that, for 51 weeks of the year, have adult-sized problems,” said George Washington student and camp co-chair Chelsea Benjamin. “And for one week of the year, they get to be kids with kid-sized problems, like, ‘Aw man, I dropped my chicken nugget on the floor,’ and ‘Aw man, I got glitter in my eye.’ ”
Camp isn’t until August, but Ms. Benjamin and co-chair Grace Koehler, along with about 50 other GW students, are busy planning one of the group’s most public fundraisers. On Thursday at 6 p.m., they’ll host Share the Magic 2012, a three-course dinner and silent auction in the City View Room featuring Marc Silver, author of “Breast Cancer Husband,” and remarks from campers and counselors. Tickets are $60 and can be purchased here. The deadline to buy tickets is tomorrow at noon.
“To have the Share the Magic event in the City View Room on GW’s campus is absolutely fantastic to get our name out and to get GW administrators, faculty and community really involved,” said Ms. Benjamin, adding the students hope to raise $15,000 from the event. In total, organizers need to raise about $80,000 to host the 80 campers and 53 student volunteers at Camp Louise in Cascade, Md., this summer.
GW’s Camp Kesem, which is a chapter of the national organization, is just like any other summer camp. There’s a lot of singing; activities like arts and crafts, drama, sports and swimming; and late-night cabin chats. The kids just happen to be tied by the fact that they have a very close connection to cancer. If they want to forget about it for a week, that’s fine. And if they want to talk about it with other campers or counselors, that’s fine, too. They make the decisions, and counselors don’t force them to do anything.
Many children, surrounded by others in similar situations, do use camp as an opportunity to open up and share their experiences, the co-chairs said. They remembered one participant who had come to camp just days after cancer took her mother’s life. Though her father said she didn’t talk about it much at home, she was able to open up at camp, backed by a strong support network of peers and counselors.
Serving this group of children is a unique and important mission for a summer camp. “There are currently very few resources for the children of cancer patients,” said Ms. Koehler, a senior majoring in speech and hearing. “The complexity of emotions they experience can easily go without attention.” Camp gives both children and their parents a much-needed break, she added.
Camp Kesem is also an important opportunity for GW students. They learn about fundraising, organizing a camp and leading a team.
Ms. Benjamin, a junior double majoring in human services and communications, said applying skills she’s learned in class to a real organization has been rewarding. She helped write a grant last year that netted the organization $10,000.
“It was really great to take something from the academic world, put it in the real world, then actually get money for it,” she said.
The students also hone their leadership skills, especially at executive board meetings where they recap their weeks, discuss upcoming action items and make sure everyone is on task so the camp planning runs smoothly.
In the end, it all pays off, especially when the students hear from parents who tell them something like, “You gave me my daughter back,” as one mother told Ms. Koehler. The 8-year-old’s father had died just a few weeks before camp, and the family wasn’t sure how she would be able to start the coping process.
“Not only was she smiling and having fun the whole time, but during our empowerment ceremony she stood up, at 8 years old, and articulated how she felt,” Ms. Koehler remembered. “What she was sad about, but also what she was still happy about. It was a big breakthrough for her.”