Rebecca Bernhard
This year my Landmark Volunteers’ group went to Casco, Maine to work at a camp called Camp Sunshine, a camp for kids with life threatening diseases and their families. Each week there is a group of kids with a different illness who come for that one week. Every day you have a schedule which looks like this: breakfast, then games, then art, pool, and lunch. Then there is a break, an activity, waterfront, an activity, dinner, and last of all entertainment. Out of the week the kids and their families were there, the parents would get one night to themselves and we would watch the kids for them. The nursery, tot lot and 6-8 year olds got to watch a movie while the 9-12 year olds and teens got to have a “camping trip”, which was actually at Camp Sunshine.

The first week there were kids with a disease called Retinoblastoma, a disease that occurs when you are born. This disease causes a tumor behind your eye, so you are blind in that eye. That week I worked with six to eight year olds. In each group there was a mix between both healthy and sick kids. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

The second week we were there it was Brain Tumor week. This was a hard and trying week. Unlike the kids with Retinoblastoma, it was obvious who had a brain tumor. Some kids were in wheel chairs but it was amazing how much they could do. That week I worked with nine to twelve year olds. One of the hardest things was some of the kids in our group acted as though they were younger because of where the tumor was located.

Over all my experience at Camp Sunshine changed me. The kids really changed the way I look at my life. They reminded me of the joys I would get when I was younger and taught me how much fun little things could be, like playing a weird version of tag. I made bonds with some of the kids, whom I still stay in touch with. I also made extremely strong bonds with the other volunteers in my Landmark group.

At night the Landmark Volunteers were not at camp but in a small cabin that could fit all of us. This was the time that we got to talk and have fun together. When we had to say good bye to both groups it was the hardest thing to do, but it was also really hard when we had to say good bye to the people that we had been spending the last two and a half weeks with. I and a few other volunteers are already planning to go back next year because it was such a great experience.

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