Camp Sunshine provides annual summer camp for children living with or who have survived cancer, giving kids the chance to forget their disease and just have fun each summer.

Making Kids Happy When Skies are Gray

Camp Sunshine Celebrates 25 years in Atlanta, Giving Hope to Families and Children with Cancer

[ Written By Lissa Poirot ]

T hen-6-year-old Erin Hulsey sat on a paper-covered table, watching carefully as her mother and the oncology nurse talked about her cancer. She didn’t understand exactly what it meant to have cancer, except that it made her sick and the treatment made her sicker. And bald. She wished she didn’t have to be in another doctor’s office. Instead, she wanted to play outside, like all the other kids. Watching the nurse, she noticed she wore a bracelet of fishing swivels. Not the typical bracelet worn by a grownup, she thought. When asked about the bracelet, the nurse said it was a special friendship bracelet only given to those who attended Camp Sunshine. “Camp Sunshine?” Erin asked. “A summer camp for kids with cancer,” replied the nurse. Although Erin didn’t know the discovery of Camp Sunshine would forever shape her life, a huge smile crept across her face for the first time that day.

Fun for All

Camp Sunshine, which celebrates its 25th year in 2007, was founded by Emory ­Medical School nurse Dorothy Jordan to provide a place for children living with cancer to ­experience the wonderful rite of passage that is summer camp, albeit one where ­medical professionals trained in childhood leukemia would be readily available to provide standard and emergency care. What began in 1983 as a one-week camp with just 40 campers now celebrates its anniversary with two weeks of summer fun, as well as year-round programs for more than 700 children and their families throughout the state of Georgia.

“The original idea was to give kids a normal summer camp experience, which many of them were not able to do because of their illness. And the camp put them with other children who were experiencing similar challenges for one week,” said Sally Hale, who joined the very first camp as a nurse and has since served as executive director for 20 years.

Camp Sunshine’s initial desire to provide a place for “a kid to be a kid” was exactly what draws so many children to its base at Camp Twin Lakes, a year-round facility in Rutledge that plays host to camp programs for children with illnesses and special needs. For Sean Andry, who was just 3 when diagnosed with Wilms’ tumor, Camp Sunshine has become a summer tradition, even though he has been in remission for nine years.

“What does he get out of it? Just that pure, unadulterated ‘kid-ness,’ ” said Sean’s mother, Ruth, of Cumming. “He loves just being a kid; 100 percent being a kid. I remember the first year he went to camp, when he came home we would ask about the other kids and what type of cancer or treatments they had, because that is what’s on a parent’s mind. But he would just say, ‘I dunno.’ They do not compare cancers, they do not compare scars, they do not compare treatments. Cancer is the last thing on their minds. They are there to have fun.”

For Erin, now cancer-free and 28 years of age, Camp Sunshine was a place to have pie fights. “When you have a sick child, as a parent, even if you don’t mean to, you kind of shelter your sick kid. That week was fantastic because it encouraged me to be normal. I was able to run around and be a kid,” she said.

Erin’s and Sean’s parents, although nervous about leaving their children at camp at the age of 7, were very trusting of Camp Sunshine and its full staff of medical personnel. “Nurses we already worked with at the hospital would be there with us, and I think it was the reason my parents allowed me to go and felt comfortable leaving me,” Erin said. “In some cases, if there was an emergency situation, I would be attended to faster than I would be at home because it was a long drive to the hospital.”

“Graduating” from Camp Sunshine when she turned 18, Erin, like 30 percent of its campers, has remained a fixture at Camp Twin Lakes, spending two years as a counselor in training and ever since as a senior counselor. “Any time I interview for a new job there is a stipulation where I say I need this one week off and it is non-negotiable. If they can’t work around Camp Sunshine, I can’t take the job,” Erin said.

All-Around Growth

Counselors like Erin and campers in remission like Sean give young campers and parents of first-timers much needed hope in a time of unanswered questions, sickness and despair. “Parents always like to see me as an adult having survived childhood cancer. I try to own that more than I used to,” Erin said. “My camper buddies have now become my counselor buddies and we’re growing up, becoming oncology nurses, getting married, having kids. It’s really encouraging for the kids and their families to see that.”

However, Camp Sunshine realized kids

and their families needed hope and infor-mation more than once a year, resulting in the organization’s expansion into year-round programs and services, made ever more possible with the addition of the Camp Sunshine House in Decatur. “We quickly saw how beneficial the camp was, so we began planning reunions and holiday parties. Within a short period of time, we added a family camp for the whole family. Strategically, the program has grown over the last 25 years as needs arose or we had opportunities to expand the program,” Hale said.

Camp Sunshine House, built in 2003, hosts a variety of ongoing programs. Fun get-togethers include preschool outings at Chattahoochee Nature Center or classes provided by The Music Class; Spa Sydell Night, where family members get free massage, facials and nail treatments from the Atlanta-based salon, which has been a sponsor of Camp Sunshine for 18 years; and spring and fall retreats for teens. Each August, teens also have the opportunity to take Camp Sunshine’s Outdoor Challenge in the mountains of Colorado, where progressively challenging opportunities teach teens to find inner strength through achievements as individuals and within groups.

“Through achievement, teens discover they possess far more inner strength than they knew,” Hale said. “The course empowers young cancer victims with the confidence, tenacity and skills necessary to confront and win the battle of cancer.”

Not only does Camp Sunshine House teach teens to overcome hurdles in the ­wilderness, its programs also educate them on their future as cancer survivors, such as insurance hurdles and obstacles in family planning. Parents and siblings can learn more about cancer, and learn to cope with a household stricken by illness.

“Camp Sunshine is there to provide comfort, support, care and love to all family members,” Ruth said. “Everyone is involved and everyone is included, and they have programs for every member of the family. They definitely recognize that everyone goes through cancer when one child in the family has cancer.”

And in the event of the unthinkable, when a child succumbs to cancer, Camp Sunshine even remains a place to turn for bereavement. Remembering the Sunshine programs include monthly meetings and dinners to share and gain support through other families, an annual bereavement gathering and an annual family camp, all working to rebuild families after their loss, while never forgetting the child.

Extended Families

Providing a place for every member of the family to better understand and cope with childhood cancer, Camp Sunshine continues to grow as it celebrates its anniversary. Throughout the year, celebratory programs will be held to commemorate the organization’s importance in the lives of Georgia’s families, and reunions will bring back those campers who have celebrated their own growth into happy, healthy adults.

But serving as a beacon could not be done without the dedication of Camp Sunshine’s full-time staff of seven and its hundreds of still much-needed volunteers and sponsors. Nearly 350 volunteers selflessly give their time annually to the organization; two-thirds to spend their vacations at camp.

“Most people don’t go on a vacation and sleep on the top of a bunk bed with a bunch of 7 year olds snoring away, but I love going back and seeing the same people I’ve seen for 21 years,” Erin said. “What keeps me coming back is seeing someone who was 7 and really bald now 13 and so healthy you would never had known they survived cancer. It means so much to see the transition of a kid who has grown up and is normal, and just to always have the support of this kind of family. Because that is what Camp Sunshine is; it’s a family.” PN