Every week during the summer, you’re likely to find children at Camp Foster YMCA having fun, making friends, learning new skills and doing all the things kids have been doing at summer camp for generations.
One week each year, though, you’ll see something even more memorable.
Camp Foster, on East Okoboji Lake in Dickinson County, has a unique offering each year: what its leaders believe is the only fully integrated camp for child burn survivors in the United States. One week each summer, 30 to 60 of the campers will be former burn patients, often accompanied by nurses or other professionals, but otherwise fully immersed in the summer camp experience.
The camp was founded in 1912, and launched its Miracle Burn Camp in partnership with a fire safety nonprofit in 1995. The Des Moines Register spoke with Executive Director Josh Carr about the origins of the burn program and what makes Camp Foster special. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What is Camp Foster?
Carr: We’re a place that kids can come and just get away from the world and meet and make friends with kids from all over the country, different backgrounds, different groups of people, really get a chance to be themselves and shine in an outdoor setting. They interface with nature, they get to play and learn new outdoors skills and activities, everything from traditional camping activities like archery and sailing to even more nuanced ones like maker spaces and challenge courses.
Camp is Sunday to Saturday, so it’s six days, and they stay in cabins and they dine in a big dining lodge and then we have a variety of programs available for the kids to do and try and explore. One week of camp can hold 270 overnight campers and up to 60 day campers.
How many kids do you see in a year?
We range anywhere from 2,300 to 2,500 per year. (In the off-season) we do serve some rentals and retreat groups.
How did the camp get started?
Well, to begin with (in 1912), it was a couple of gentlemen who got together and wanted to establish a camp for boys. Then it’s progressed to meet the needs of our communities. We’re a coed camp and we definitely have boys and girls from different ages. Hopefully we’re giving them the confidence to talk to one another and to open up and share ideas and to be really who they are.
How did the burn program get started, and who does it serve?
It’s a partnership with St. Florian Burn Foundation. One of their biggest focuses is here at camp and we call it Miracle Burn Camp, where survivors of traumatic injuries or accidents are able to come to camp, be with kids like themselves and have an enjoyable week. They bring in nurses who have worked in burn units, firefighters who are passionate about that, and they have volunteers who come and help support us with their staff.
And is that integrated with the main camp?
Yes in fact, we are, at least to my knowledge right now, still the only fully integrated with other kids burn camp in the United States, so the general population kids are mixed with the survivors. There’s a special session, one week out of the summer, that we hold back spots for the survivors and then we fill our spots with the rest of (the campers).
And what do you have to do differently to work with these children?
We rely and lean heavily on our partners with the St. Florian Burn Foundation. They work with the kids on the onboarding side of things so they know some of the emotional backgrounds of their trauma, they understand their burns and their physical wounds, because that’s where the nurses come in. None of us are qualified obviously to work with these wounds if they’re still healing.
But the other thing that we do is really to treat them like kids, because in their schools and their homes, they’re seen and viewed by their friends and family and neighbors as kids that have been hurt, so people dance around and treat them differently. Here at camp we want them to have an experience where they’re away from all that. They get to come to camp and they get to enjoy the outdoors and have fun just like any other kid.
How to learn more:
About Camp Foster YMCA: https://campfosterymca.com/
About St. Florian Burn Foundation: https://stflorianfireandburnfoundation.com/
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa YMCA Camp Foster holds special week for child burn survivors
Reporting by William Morris, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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