Annual summer event becomes more inclusive
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — Megan Pisor stood on a grassy hill Wednesday, water balloon in hand, shouting out directions for the staff members on her left and her fellow Camp Apple children on her right.
Just seconds later, she released the water balloon, signaling for the staff and campers to playfully charge at each other in a water-balloon battle.
It was part of a summer of festivities for Camp Apple, one of nine programs run by Community Care Connections.
Yet this year, Camp Apple added something new. The camp, which started in the mid-1970s and traditionally was exclusively for special-needs children, now allows for all children to attend.
“We want to be more inclusive,” said Cindy Harbison, public relations director of Community Care Connections. “We are encouraging our children to get out into the community and participate in different types of activities, so we thought, why not encourage other children to come here and participate in ours as well?”
The camp includes 42 children in all, though not all of them are there every day. The free camp began June 21, and runs 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday until Aug. 11.
While some of the children have intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities or both, they do the same activities that children without disabilities do.
“We're holding the kids to a higher standard,” said first-time camp director Sarah Sauers. “We're not lowering our activities, so these kids with special needs are really benefiting from it because they're doing exactly what the typical kids are doing.”
The response from the typical children without disabilities has been positive, also.
“It's really nice that these typical kids are taking them in as one of their own,” Sauers said. “They don't see anything different about it. They're all just working together.”
Both Sauers and Harbison said that the children work so well together that it's hard to tell who has the disabilities.One such child who thrives is 8-year-old Eden Lieberum. She lives with her aunt, Paula Lieberum, who has worked at the camp since 1988.When Paula Lieberum had the chance to bring Eden, who classifies under “typical,” to camp this year, she didn't hesitate.“I actually think it's a good thing of incorporating with the disabilities and the non-disabilities together because I do think that the community needs to be familiarized more so that the individuals with disabilities can be incorporated more into the community,” she said.“I really like what they're doing this year with this. As you can see, it doesn't matter; (the children) are not seeing disabilities. They're seeing children.”As for Eden, Paula Lieberum sees nothing but positives.“She seems to love it,” Paula Lieberum said. “She gets up everyday wanting to come in here. She said she made friends, which was really nice, and the basketball, she seems to love it.”In addition to Paula Lieberum, other staff members have helped to make the program a success. Thirteen-year-old Mark Kasey said that the staff members are “fun” and added, “They take care of us.”Pat Brennen, executive director of Community Care Connections, highlighted Sauers as a major positive of the program's new direction.“We wanted someone who was used to working with children and having fun with children, so that their focus wouldn't just be that disability piece,” she said.They found that someone in Sauers, a Slippery Rock University graduate who worked for five years at Lifesteps — first part-time, then full-time, as a preschool teacher.Sauers, who began working at Community Care Connections in the spring of this year, feels right at home with the camp.“I love working here,” she said. “This is more me, (working with) a lot of different ages.”Many of the children, like Megan Pisor, enjoy working with her.“It's just the fact that we can all come here and have fun,” said Megan, 14.And with July just beginning, there's still much more fun to be had.“It's just like rolling with the punches,” she said. “You just don't know what's going to happen next.”
