Camp Hope: Life lessons in fun
Published: August 3, 2006
Just because he caught three fish in a row didn’t mean Willie was going near any of them.
“Ewwww. Gross,” he said.
C’mon, his teacher urged, take a picture with your catch.
In the photos, soon-to-be ninth-grader Willie stands rigid, arms against his sides, hands nowhere near the slick, 6-inch brim dangling beside him.
Most kids would be thrilled to hook so many fish on a camping trip with their whole school.
But it’s different when you’re deeply depressed. Or bipolar. Or schizophrenic.
Like Willie.
Later, at the award ceremony, he buried his head in his hands, crumpling a certificate that noted his fishing prowess.
But when no one was looking, he smoothed the scrunched edges of the paper. He kept his face pointed toward his lap, but he was staring at the award, pressing it into his knees with his elbows.
Nothing left to chance
Principal Sherri Kelty is, by her own description, pretty gutsy.
She leads a school where every child has a mental illness — or more than one. Conditions that can make the children hallucinate, hear voices, feel suicidal or suffer extreme mood swings.
You don’t get to Indian Ridge School unless your condition is so severe no other public school can help you.
But Kelty has tried to make Indian Ridge as normal as possible, adding a prom and graduation ceremonies since she took over about four years ago.
“Life has a lot to offer them. They just don’t know.”
But a camping trip? Even Kelty hesitated. How would her students handle it?
It took three years and music therapist Tom Dalton to wear her down. Dalton joined Indian Ridge this year after working for Hospice, where he led camps for Hospice families.
But those camps didn’t require planning every minute of every day. They didn’t need an on-call psychiatrist. They didn’t involve the screening of every bag to make sure no drugs or weapons were stashed inside.
Although the school has fewer than 100 students from kindergartners to 22-year-olds, it has its own school police officer and metal detectors. Kids can be violent or withdrawn and they might have to be restrained. Some need their own aide all day. There are nearly as many staff as students, including three crisis-intervention teachers and six counselors. At camp, staff outnumbered students, and the list of student medications took 197 lines — for just 63 kids.
“We cannot leave anything to chance,” Indian Ridge therapist Deri Dinnan said.
But that didn’t mean she and Dalton weren’t a little nervous about the two-day sleepover.
“They’re going to have to learn to adjust to change,” Dinnan said. “That’s what they’re going to have to do their whole life.”
Under the influence of sugar
They called their adventure “Camp Hope.”
When the buses pulled into J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management area from the Lake Worth school, Kelty watched the throng go from orderly to chaotic back to orderly again as the kids crowded into the main cabin.
One kid’s T-shirt read: “I used to have super human powers, but my therapist took them away.”
“I know we will have a phenomenal experience here,” Kelty said.
Then she went inside to reassure the kids.
“Like other things we do at Indian Ridge, this is a test. It’s kind of on you. You ought to be proud of yourselves that the staff thought you could do it,” she told them. “Although we have talked about camp for the last three years, we have never been able to get it done.”
Then they did fun camp things, just normal stuff: Crafts, canoeing, fishing. And, of course, making s’mores over a campfire.
Rising 10th-grader Bradley Svitak’s mom was worried about sending him to camp, although she wanted him to go.
Bradley, 14, has Asperger’s syndrome, an illness related to autism. He has trouble making eye contact and sometimes overtakes conversations, steering them to his own interests, like fantasy video games. Sometimes, he’s really loud.
Around the campfire, when kids poked marshmallows onto skewers, he rushed to the table with the other ingredients — graham crackers and Hershey bars — and leaned forward to get the attention of the teacher.
“Someone burned four marshmallows at once,” he said. “I want to try it.”
Bradley’s been at Indian Ridge since the end of his fifth-grade year. Last year, for the first time, Bradley changed classes for different subjects. He was so excited about the prom he made sure the timing worked out so that his braces came off beforehand. At camp, he thought to introduce his buddy, Nick Van Pelt, to someone he’s just met.
Other boys his age might worry about these same things — friends, prom, braces. But when you’re Bradley, you do things with more vigor.
After the campfire, during a karaoke session, Bradley sang and danced with the other kids.
“I’m under the influence of sugar,” he said with a smile, then he paused and rubbed his forearm over his glistening brow.
But in one corner of the room, Willie was sitting in a chair by himself, crying. He was allowed to go on like that for a moment, then in-school suspension teacher Ozzie Garcia went to him and they bumped fists.
Then came the group’s most-requested song, R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.”
“If I can see it, then I can do it. … ’cause I believe in me.”
Suddenly, the entire room melted together, a mass of linked arms, swaying shoulders, and heads resting on one another.
“Are we having fun yet?” therapist Dalton asked.
Willie wasn’t crying anymore.
New year, new challenges
Some of Indian Ridge’s kids will transfer to regular high schools when school starts on Aug. 16. They’ve told their teachers that the best part of their time at Indian Ridge was Camp Hope.
Some of the teachers think so, too. Their hearts were won over by seeing kids like Willie, Bradley and Summer Smith blossom. Before coming to Indian Ridge, Summer Smith’s mental illness made her so afraid, it kept her from leaving home for four years.
“It’s a fun place to come and hang out,” said Summer, who will be a sophomore this year. “I haven’t done this stuff before. Not that I can remember.”
Camp Hope proved to be as uplifting as its name.
“Next year,” Principal Kelty said, “we’ll hire the canoe guy for two days.”
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