How one weekend can build a family

It's easy to get lulled into happy complacency by doing the for a long time, especially when that same thing is working really well.

Extra Special People made a niche for itself in this community by offering summer camp to kids with disabilities, and we've gotten really good at that. But, in the last few years, we've started and looking for other ways to enrich the lives of both the kids and the families we work with.

Two weekends ago, we saw that in action. And it was awesome.

Thanks to a couple of grants and to Camp Dream, in Warm Springs, Ga., ESP was able to offer a family weekend to roughly 20 families – nearly 70 people total – during a weekend in the middle of March.

It was conceived as a respite for ESP families, often over-burdened with the stresses of not just raising families, but raising families with special needs.

Now, to many people with a family member who is ill or has special needs, “respite” often means time away from that family member. Family Camp was time for the entire family to get away from their normal routines and concerns.

I talked with Vicki Sykora this week about that experience – what it meant to her, and how it felt to spend a weekend with her son, Dakota, 15. Unfortunately, Dakota's dad and Vicki's husband, Joe, and Dakota's younger brother, Austin, had to miss Family Camp because of Austin's busy baseball schedule.

Austin may have been the most disappointed of all, Vicki said, because he volunteers at ESP, and gets as much out of being there as Dakota, who has attended ESP programs for nearly 13 years.

But even though only half of the Sykora family was able to attend, they found something amazing to fill in the missing pieces of dad and brother.

“We were all able to help each other out,” Vicki said. “It was just like it was a big family. Nobody looked at each other funny.”

Kids played with their friends; parents made new ones at baseball games and yoga.

Parents and kids had recreation time together, too. Vicki and Dakota did arts and crafts together on Saturday afternoon. Vicki didn't worry about grocery shopping or laundry. Dakota didn't worry about school work.

“It was really neat just to be able to sit down and experience this one-on-one time together,” Vicki said. “We're usually on the go, and so busy. It was just nice to see him hang out with his friends and feel like a normal kid.”

Dakota is in a wheelchair. Camp Dream is fully accessible to kids and young adults with special needs, but Dakota was not able to zip-line on that day (though he has zip-lined at Camp Twin Lakes, Willaway, during ESP summer camp). So, while Vicki Sykora strapped into the zip-line harness, Dakota cheered.

“He thought it was cool when I got up there and climbed up the tree, so he was my support,” said Vicki, who added that she never went to summer camp as a child. For her, Family Camp was a way of recapturing that missed experience with her child.

How cool is that? Parents are used to playing the supporting role for their kids – parents of kids with special needs even more so. It's pretty incredible to see kids with disabilities turning the tables and cheering on their parents for doing something spectacular or unexpected.

But one of the most remarkable things to me about hearing Vicki describe her weekend at Family Camp was the support that parents found in each other. On Saturday night, while volunteers bowled with the kids at the camp's bowling alley, Vicki Sykora and other parents gathered for coffee and conversation.

“I think that everybody was just able to go away, leave behind the problems we have at home, and just focus on sharing with other people,” Vicki said. “While you're there, everything just stops.”

When your family faces special demands that strain resources, time – even relationships – it can get pretty easy to believe your family is the first one to have ever experienced such frustration and hardship. But parents like Vicki were reminded a couple of weekends ago that these situations form a special kind of bond between their families.

ESP offers family supports, but Vicki admits that even at a one- or two-hour event on the weekends, it is hard to stop thinking about the list of errands that need to be run, or the list of chores waiting at home.

“There's a lot of things going on and you can't focus on being there, and spend the valuable time it takes when it's just for two hours or one hour,” she said. “I didn't really have any expectation (about Family Camp), but I came out with a lot of friends. You just have so much support, and it makes you feel not alone anymore.”

Family Camp was made possible – and the cost to families was kept at a nominal fee – thanks to several grants and gifts. The North Georgia Jaycees donated $3,127 in proceeds from a November Shawn Mullins concert, Plum Creek Foundation donated $1,000, and the Turner Family Foundation gave us a grant for $35,000, of which approximately $2,700 went toward Family Camp.