Camp Looking Glass: Volunteering Down In The Delta

Mandy Adams is like a lot of people lingering in the years after college. A little confused about what's next, she laughs, "I don't know - I'm still figuring it out." She adds, " My boyfriend and I have thought about opening a homeless shelter where I could run the pre-school." Not exactly the answer you'd expect from a twentysomething trying to plan her future.

While studying for her Master's degree in Early Childhood Education and Creative Arts in Learning, Mandy continues to be a part of the project closest to her heart - Camp Looking Glass, a week long camp held every summer in the Mississippi delta town of Greenville for children with varying levels of mental and physical disabilities.

The camp aims to offer campers stimulating activities like photography, drama and arts and crafts - things that children with severe disabilities rarely get to do during the school year. But it's not just for the campers, as Mandy says. It's also about the parents. When she began fundraising for CLG, she spent a lot of time just explaining "what it would mean for the parents to have a respite."

Adams met the founder of Camp Looking Glass, Jennifer Boyce in 2004 while working at Jabberwocky, a month long sleep-over camp on Martha's Vineyard for adults and children with disabilities. Boyce was coming from Teach For America, where recent college graduates dedicated two years to teaching in urban and rural public schools. Both women were impressed with how much care and attention the Jabberwocky campers received. "We started to create a connection between the two of us - we talked a lot about the kids in Greenville who had nothing to do during the summer. She was planning on having a mini-camp, where she was going to invite people from Jabberwocky and people from the community in Mississippi."

During the trial session, Mandy knew she was hooked from the start, thanks to one particular camper named Katy. "Her smile is contagious. She was 10 at the time and was born with cerebral palsy -- basically paralyzing her from the neck down. She speaks with her eyes, looks up to say yes and down to say no. I started talking to her, really looking at her and asking questions. Katy's mom, who was standing behind Katy's wheelchair, told me that no one had ever talked to Katy like that before -- looking her in the eyes. I just thought, no one? Which made me realize that this camp was really needed.""

When the mini-camp was a success, Boyce and Adams began working to turn Looking Glass into an annual event. Mandy started fundraising vigorously, hosting a bbq for her parents' friends and raising awareness. While she found willing donors, the locals in Greenville seemed cautious, but eventually the families in the delta became the camp's backbone.

"Initially we thought all the money we raised would have to go towards food and lodging" says Adams, "but what happened was that a lot of people in the community would want to cook. So parents would cook hot breakfast, the gas station gave us cereal. The local movie theater paid for us all to go for a movie night. They really have reached out, because it's a small town. Many people in Greenville know or are connected with a parent of a camper or a volunteer, they'd seen the change in the parents' and the children's lives, and wanted to help."

"Campers don't pay to come, it's completely free," says Adams. "Everyone who's a councilor is a volunteer 24 hours a day, 7 days straight. I think they're really incredible. A lot of people from Teach For America, a lot of highschoolers come from the community, either people who volunteer in special needs classes, or brothers and sisters of campers. It's just amazing to hear these highschoolers, trying to figure out what they want to do, realizing after a week at camp, they want to study special education, speech pathology, or physical therapy."

It doesn't sound so different from her own path towards volunteerism. What got Adams interested in working with people with special needs was her own frustrations with learning disabilities. "I realized I'd been struggling with a learning disability, which had been undiagnosed. It was something I took action on my own in college. I wanted to work with people because I'd been struggling with this hidden problem -- and I realized, what would it be like to have something that wasn't hidden -- something that people stared at?"

Whatever comes next for Mandy, she knows that her work with Camp Looking Glass will continue,
"I always want camp to come first before my other work." Campers look forward to their week with Mandy, Jennifer, and the other dedicated volunteers at Camp Looking Glass. With obvious affection Adams describes Anthony, a camper who returns year after year: "[he] put all his pictures from camp in a book, and brought it to school everyday with him. He feels like camp is his family - an extension of it. And all the campers ask their families throughout the year, 'When's camp? When's camp?'"

Comments

[Monicaforouzesh]

Discovering the "hidden problems" in society is key, the universal key, to understanding one another and growing peace. Mandy you are a wonderful human being, thank you for sharing your work.

[jodybooth]

I loved reading about the ambitious and heartfelt work of Mandy and Jennifer. We need more young (and old) people like that, serving the needs of those with disadvantages and allowing them to just be campers having fun. The differrence that these two women are making has reminded me to take a look at what it is I could be doing in my own community.

[clunger]

Mandy Adams is an inspiration to us all. At a time when people complain that young people are all about themselves she shows us what can happen when a person decides to devote themselves to others. One person can really make a difference.

[volunteeractivist]

Having visited Camp Looking Glass and watched the remarkable work that Mandy and the others are doing, I was delighted to read this story.

The City of Greenville adopted the camp. The churches and synagogues brought meals, the children had experiences that never would have come there way - going out to dinner, attending a movie, taking trip on the river, playing games and sports, acting in plays - and they gained confidence and made new friends in the process. It was as though the whole community adopted the camp.

Bravo to all involved - and to the Huffington Post for highlighting this great work.

[adamsaileen]

As a visitor to Camp Looking Glass during its first year, I was inspired by counselors, like Mandy Adams and Jennifer Boyce, who helped to organize the camp, as well as by the campers themselves. Most of the camp activities were "firsts" for these campers of different abilities and ethnicities. They went fishing for the first time; experienced their very first riverboat ride; saw their first movie in a theater; and performed songs in a church for the first time. Most had never starred in a play, ridden a horse, or spent a night away from home.
The human reaction to just seeing the group was palpable. For example, the riverboat captain, who would not let us pay for tickets, said, with tears in his eyes, that he had never been so moved by any group before. Children in wheelchairs, children with Down Syndrome, children with cerebral palsy, one of whom was paralyzed from the neck down -- all of different races and classes -- participated in a variety of activities they had never tried before. Thirteen year old Meghan, a Downie, had never walked up a step. Her mother warned us that it was the one thing she wouldn"t try -- yet, on the riverboat, she climbed up three flights of stairs to the very top! The grin on her face is etched in my mind forever. Ten year old Katie, paralyzed from the neck down, blinked her eyes with delight as she danced with her counselor and later rode a horse.
Each child exemplified perseverance and courage. Each one had his or her own counselor, most of whom, like Mandy and Jennifer, were in their early 20"s and had volunteered their time to ensure that two dozen young people with different abilities could have a camp of their own. These counselors, with their vision and dedication, have initiated a model camp which could be replicated in many communities where children of different abilities have few, if any, opportunities. They demonstrate the power that a cadre of young people has to make the world a far better place.