Introduction
On July 28th, my mom and I left Stone Mountain, GA, traveled through Tennessee and Kentucky on the 29th and finally arrived at Bradford Woods in Martinsville, Indiana for a summer camp called Camp PossAbility later that night. Camp PossAbility is a summer camp that was established in 2014 for young adults ages eighteen and up who have a physical disability and are in wheelchairs. Having a disability is difficult, and we need help doing certain things because not everything is handicap accessible. Although at Camp PossAbility, everything is accessible, everyone helps out, and we do things that we thought we couldn't do. Every camper gets a volunteer for the week, and they do everything together from sharing a cabin to making memories which will last forever. I think that coming from a camp a few hours down the road and away from home where you're in a group of five or six kids with two counselors and all the campers have to basically be able to feed themselves and do their personal care independently to a camp that's eight hours away with a trained medical staff that can fully assist with personal care if needed and it's just the camper with the volunteer for the entire week, was a weird but good transition for me. It was my first year at Camp PossAbility and even though camp is really expensive, I was given a scholarship by Bellyak to go for free because the Bellyak founder Adam Masters donated a Bellyak to the camp.
Campers and Cabins
There were thirty three campers and three cabins at camp this year. 1. Wade 2. Montgomery and 3. Rhodes Landon. Wade Cabin is for the guys who have brain injuries, Montgomery is for the girls, and Rhodes Landon is a mix of campers who are quadripalegics and who have spinal cord injuries. I was in Wade Cabin with six other guys including Jeff Scherer, Caleb Lammert, Tanner Freeman, Parker Timberman, Andy Imlay, and Rob Heska. We had our cabin dad Scott Fergusson, along with our cabin staff/volunteers, Austin Fergusson who was my volunteer for the week, Andrew Ridner who was Andy's volunteer, David Privitt was Tanner and Parker's volunteer, Trevor Rowell was Caleb's volunteer, and Josh Baxter was Rob's volunteer. The cabins had beds on both sides of it along with a hangout area and bathroom in between them.
Activites and Memories
The activities offered at camp (some are pictured below are horseback riding, adaptive cycling, zip lining, basketball, archery, bellyaking, canoeing, swimming pool, s'mores at the camp fire, and a dance on the last night of camp. Throughout the week memories were made, old friendships were reunited, and new friendships were made. I made new friends like my volunteer Austin and the guys in my cabin, I got to know them through playing games and spending time together. If you're interested in seeing pictures from this week, please feel free to visit my instagram page or the Camp PossAbility Facebook page. I'm looking forward to returning for my second year in the summer of 2018.
