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RSSChildren with cancer, siblings enjoy a week away from hospitals at Camp COCO
HUDSON - Steve Caldwell is passionate about summer camp, but not just any camp will do. Every July, Caldwell, past president of the Decatur Breakfast Optimist Club, leads a group to volunteer during Optimist Day at Camp COCO.
The camp, which runs for one week each summer, allows children who have battled or are fighting cancer and their siblings to get away from hospitals and doctor visits and just be kids. It is sponsored through the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and provides a medical staff so the children can continue their treatments away from home.
"My main mission when I design a week of camp is to get them out of that hospital setting and to give them a week like any other normal child at camp and to give them the memories and the things that they talk about amongst each other at clinic or when they're laying in their hospital bed getting chemo," camp activities director Elizabeth "Bet" Spence said.
Caldwell lost one of his twin daughters, Amy, to cancer in her early infancy. She's always on his mind, he said, especially when he attends camp each year.
"Well, she's kind of been the ultimate motivator for me," he said. "I promised that I would never forget."
A Passport to Adventure theme took campers on a virtual trip around the globe with activities to fit the days' visits to France, Italy, China, Japan and more. Every year, about 50 area Optimists take over the camp on a Thursday afternoon. They showed up just in time for the group's trek into Mexico.
As he led team cuatro in the sombrero relay and the Mexican hat dance, Caldwell's dedication to giving children an opportunity Amy never got to experience is evident. When Holley Brooks, 8, of Rantoul, got sunscreen in her eye, Caldwell led her gingerly by the hand to a group of counselors.
Holley, attending camp for the third time, said she enjoys going swimming and making new friends. Getting to spend a week with the other girls in her cabin is a treat for the only child.
"(Camp is) a refreshing look at what really is important in life," Caldwell said as the campers (and their counselors) engaged in a massive water gun shootout. "It gives these kids an opportunity to decompress."
At a June golf outing to benefit the camp, Caldwell presented a check for $22,000 on behalf of the Decatur community. The majority of the money came from a fundraiser held in early April at the Decatur Club.
Caldwell stressed that an important part of the fundraising effort was through partnerships formed with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Illinois and the Oakbrook-based Ty Inc., which donated stuffed puppy dogs for all the campers.
Decatur Optimist Tim Dudley attended a meeting where Caldwell talked about the impact of losing his daughter and his resulting dedication to Camp COCO. That's all it took for Dudley to succumb to the fervent energy that overtakes the camp's supporters.
But to fully understand Camp COCO, its devotees insist, one has to experience the impact it has on the lives of children. This summer, more than 100 campers packed into the rustic cabins at Timber Pointe Outdoor Center, an Easter Seals camp on Lake Bloomington.
"Coming to camp is kind of the culmination, the realization of why I do what I do and why so many community members do what they do," Caldwell said.
The Decatur group continued its tradition of eating Casey's convenience store fare on the way up and sharing stories of past Camp COCO visits.
"I have two kids of my own," said Decatur Optimist Stephany Rogers, who was volunteering for the second year. "I couldn't imagine how that parent feels - let alone how that child goes through that."
One of the most memorable camp visits for Dudley and Caldwell was when they met Meghan Heisler of Springfield.
"That girl, they said next year she wouldn't be back - that that was her last camp," Dudley said.
A few years ago, the young girl was too weak to blow a marshmallow out of a PVC pipe blowgun. The next year, the men recalled, they ran up the path asking, "Where's Meghan? Where's Meghan?"
Now 15, Meghan has been to camp for more than half of the summers in her life. When the Decatur group arrived, she was decorating her Camp COCO pillowcase with Spence and some others in the "med shed," equipped to handle anything from scraped knees to chemotherapy.
"I get tenfold back what I give," Spence said. "I'm a great believer in volunteering, and I think that one person can make a difference, and that's very important to me."
The 21-year volunteer's shirt read, "Until there's a cure, there's camp," and she, too, said Meghan is a living example of the way Camp COCO makes children's lives better.
"She told me her ambition in life is to have my job," Spence said with a proud smile.
Meghan will be too old to be a camper next year, but Spence already has bestowed the title of "assistant activities director" on her for next summer. Meghan, all life and enthusiasm with a blue-green streak in her dark hair, is a far cry from the homesick girl she was when she first came to camp, Spence said. She stayed two or three days.
"But then that year, all she could talk about was coming back to camp," Spence said. "And every year she's at camp, her ability is different, and I think part of it is that will to survive from one year to the next."
Silas Martin, 9, of Decatur, said he was enjoying "the sleeping, and the eating and the swimming" most in his fourth summer at Camp COCO. He also made a shadow box complete with lots of sparkly glitter during arts and crafts time.
Silas' face graced a billboard earlier this year to raise awareness about April's Camp COCO fundraiser. Dawn Hagan and her daughter Alicia, 13, were on the committee for local planning and fundraising for Camp COCO, and they made their first visit to camp on Optimist day.
"The thing I look forward to the most is to see how these kids - whether they've met each other before or not - how they interact," Hagan said before she arrived at camp.
Spence explained the reason she believes the children are able to form the steadfast bonds they do at Camp COCO.
"You know, camp puts them in a level playing field," she said. "There's no one to make fun of their bald heads or the fact that they only have (one) leg or their ports hanging out."
Most amazing to an outsider, perhaps, is the fact that no one at camp seems to talk about cancer - at least not during playtime. In their personal interactions, Spence said, the children tend to cling to each other for support, the younger ones reaching out to older children who have fought their same battles.
"I think camp gives them hopes and dreams," Spence said.
Annie Getsinger can be reached at agetsinger@herald-review.com or 421-6968.
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