January 9, 2010
New administrator of Camp ReCreation looks to expand programs
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Kathi Barber, the new camp administrator for Camp ReCreation, says that after her first experience working with disabled adults she never had any doubt about what she wanted to do with her life. Luis Gris/ Herald photo
When Camp ReCreation administrator Kathi Barber was a junior on the tennis team at McClatchy High School in Sacramento, she volunteered to support a tennis class program for disabled adults.
On the appointed day, she and another 16-year-old girl arrived at the tennis courts, ready to play. A van pulled up with 12 residents from a local skilled nursing facility, whom the van drivers helped to get out onto the courts. Most residents were in wheelchairs. A few people could walk. One woman was strapped on a gurney.
The class instructor never showed up. Barber and her friend played tennis with the residents anyway.
“We got the van drivers to help us and we organized everybody and started to play,” she recalled. The woman on the gurney, who had no arms, held the tennis racquet with her feet, Barber said, “and we just threw the balls right at her racquet.”
There was a whole lot more socializing going on than therapy, Barber noted, but everyone had a lot of fun, including the volunteers.
And Barber found her calling in life. “After that, I was never confused about what I wanted to do,” she said.
Barber went on to study therapeutic recreation at California State University, Sacramento and has worked for the Therapeutic Recreation Services (TRS) division of Sacramento County as a recreation specialist (therapeutic) for more than 30 years. She created TRS’ Special Olympics team, called the Sacramento County Chargers, in 1982 with 15 athletes. The team has grown to more than 100 participants, and Barber continues to coach athletes and volunteer coaches for the team.
Continuing her work with TRS, Berber now wears another hat as part-time camp administrator of Camp ReCreation. She assumed this new role in mid-November.
“One of the best parts this job is the spiritual element — that it is a ministry here,” Barber told The Herald in an interview. “I knew about Camp ReCreation through my friends and I knew it was a special program.”
One of the unique elements of the camp is that the campers attend Mass several times during the week, and they assist in the liturgy, proclaiming the Scripture readings and the prayers of the faithful, bringing up the offertory gifts and singing. The opportunity for such full and active participation in the liturgy is not yet available in many parishes, she noted, and the campers clearly love it.
Barber’s work at Camp ReCreation is very similar to her work with TRS, she notes. Both programs enhance the quality of life for individuals with disabilities by assisting them in achieving their highest level of independence in leisure activities they enjoy.
“If anything, individuals with disabilities have more need for recreation,” Barber noted. “They need a place to socialize in a safe setting, where they can develop friendships, be active, and be part of the community.”
After individuals with disabilities finish school, they have few opportunities to meet people and make friends, she said. So when funding to recreation programs for the disabled are cut, the effects are devastating.
If able-bodied people lose their gym memberships, they can ride a bike in their neighborhood, Barber explained. But if persons with disabilities lose access to their recreation program, with its counselors and therapists who enable them to join in the activities, they can be stuck at home, isolated. Yet in hard economic times, “recreational programs” are among the first to go, she added.
Camp ReCreation has a policy of not turning away any registered camper for lack of funds, Barber said, but last year, the program had 130 requests for 94 available spaces. So one of her goals as camp adminstrator is to find new funding sources to expand the program.
Currently Camp ReCreation offers two one-week residential camping sessions each summer, and two or three activities during the rest of the year. Barber would like to expand the activities during the year, perhaps adding a weekend camping program closer to home for people who can’t be away from home for an entire week, and ultimately adding another week’s camping session in the summer. Those expansions would require more funding and more volunteers.
Barber particularly likes the Camp ReCreation program for its unique one-to-one camper-to-counselor ratio, which is provided entirely through volunteers. The volunteers live side-by-side with the campers for the entire week, helping them to participate in the camp activities as fully as possible. Students from Catholic high schools often volunteer initially to satisfy the Christian service requirement for graduation, and then many of them return every summer because they love the experience, she said.
John Donahoe, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, a current board member of Camp ReCreation, and a volunteer since 1985 has observed many young volunteers return year after year. He said that first-time volunteers usually start the week feeling that they’re “doing a good deed.” About halfway through the week though, they begin to realize that they’re getting a lot more out of it than they expected.
“It’s an enlightening experience for our teenage volunteers,” he noted.
A member of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Fairfield and of the Chief Solano Council of the Knights of Columbus, Donahoe explained that the 62 councils of Knight of Columbus in the Sacramento Diocese raise about half of Camp ReCreation’s budget during the annual Tootsie Roll Drive in October. Fundraisers, philanthropy and grants provide other sources of funding, but a major stumbling block to expanding services is the need for more volunteers to staff the programs.
The camp maintains a healthy ratio of adults to high school students, he said, to ensure that there’s a prudent measure of experience and maturity among the staff. But the program needs adult volunteers as well as teens.
Matt Palmer, a 2007 graduate of Jesuit High School in Carmichael and a current student at New York University, will be volunteering for his third summer this June. “I plan to volunteer as long as possible,” he said. “It’s my favorite week of the year.”
Palmer said that one of the great gifts of the week is being with the campers, who are utterly non-judgmental and open to their experience.
“You go there to help them be at camp,” he said, “but you realize that you’re having just as good a time as they are. You’re at camp, too. And you’re making friends.”
Palmer’s friendships with campers have changed the way he sees the world. After helping his friends dress themselves or shave, he said, he’s became a lot more comfortable around people with disabilities. He doesn’t avoid eye contact with disabled strangers, or talk down to them or any of the other “ridiculous” things that people do and that he used to do.
“The main thing is that you realize you’re talking to them the way you talk to anyone else,” Palmer said. “We’re all people.”
Camp ReCreation
Camp ReCreation is a residential summer camp program for adults and children with developmental disabilities.
Week-long camping sessions are offered at Camp Ronald McDonald, a fully accessible and accredited site on 35 acres along Eagle Lake near Susanville.
The camp is staffed by entirely by volunteers, who provide a one-to-one ratio of camper to counselor.
Cost is $475 per session. Registration is through a lottery drawing in February. Scholarships are available. No one is turned away for lack of funds.
To enter this year’s lottery, send an e-mail inquiry to Kathi Barber at mail@camprec.org or call Barber at (916) 733-0136.
Information sessions for prospective volunteers will be held in March. For more information, go to: www.camprec.org.
