ORLANDO, Fla. – Camp Boggy Creek gives children with serious illnesses and their families a chance to experience a free camp with other children going through similar experiences all while participating in different activities.
Dr. Dan Jurman, president and CEO of Camp Boggy Creek, joined Breakfast with Bridgett on Monday to talk about the benefits of camp.
“Camp offers eight sessions of sleepaway camp, traditional activities at sleepaway camp, like archery, horseback riding, boating and fishing, swimming and just fun with other kids who are going through the same thing that you’re going through. And so the kids get that experience of knowing they’re not the only one, and that anything is possible for them, that they don’t have to say no to the things that bring them joy,” he said.
The entire camp caters to the children and has the level of care needed to help parents feel comfortable and “feel that it’s OK for their children to be with us for five days without them being present.”
November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month, and Jurman’s daughter, who has epilepsy, also developed a very serious stutter after her seizures started. He said her first time at Camp Boggy Creek helped her in many ways.
“And it was so gradual that we were so worried about the health care implications of her epilepsy, that we didn’t even see it at first. And so after five days feeling that safe and that respected and loved (at camp), she actually did a poem. She wrote it herself about camp and performed it on stage in front of 200 people,” he said. " I told her counselors, ‘my daughter doesn’t talk in front of people, and you made her feel so safe that she was willing to do something like that.’ And it still makes me tear up now, and that’s for all of our campers. They have these experiences of feeling like nothing’s impossible for me, and I don’t have to be embarrassed here, because here I’m normal.”
Watch the full interview at the top of this story.
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