About 40 years ago, I attended Camp Courage for the first time. I was NOT a happy camper… at first.
Camp Courage is a camp for kids and adults with disabilities in Maple Lake, Minn. It’s been around for more than 50 years. It’s “courage” name predates the name of its parent organization, Courage Center, by a couple decades (at its founding the organization had a very unpolitically correct name — the Minnesota Society for Crippled Children and Adults).
So, why wasn’t I a happy camper? Back in the 1960s, I was one of those lucky first kids who were mainstreamed into public schools. In my 11-year-old reality, I wasn’t disabled. At least not like those kids who HAD to go to Camp Courage. I was different. (And, more than a little bit arrogant.)
But, my mother, Stina Warner, a 40-something widow, was wise. She knew that life with a disability would be a challenge. That I’d need to toughen up. Need to learn self-confidence and independence. (To go along with my genetic stubborness.) She knew she wouldn’t be around forever. My mom heard about Camp Courage from a coworker.
And, I would go. Whether I wanted to or not.
(As I said, she was a widow, in her 40s. That week I spent at Camp Courage every summer, gave her a chance to rest, but also a chance to kick up her heels a little).
It didn’t take me long, just a couple of days at camp before I started to fit in. It all started with a togo party. (Yes, I said a toga party!) My cabin mates and counselors helped us costume ourselves in bedsheets and garlands for our heads, to take part in a mini G-rated Animal House, right at Camp Courage. One of those camp staffers was named Mimi. She would meet and marry the love of her life, Tom Fogarty, and decades later after a lifetime of devoted to Courage Center Camps, the couple would become the leaders of the Courage Center Camps program.
That toga party was just the first of my many Camp memories. Did I learn a lot? Yes! Did I change my own prejudiced views about people with disabilities? Absolutely! Over the next six or so summers I grew up and I learned a lot. I made lifelong friends who were disabled. But, one of my biggest takeaways from that first summer was: I had a blast!
When my family arrived at camp to take me home, they couldn’t quite believe my transformation. The sullen, pouting angry kid they dropped off at Camp Courage, had turned into an excited, talkative happy kid who sang camp songs… ALL the way home.
As an adult, I became a disability rights advocate. Other friends I’d met at camp became the people with disabilities in our community who advocated for change. Who advocated for and who celebrated 20 years ago, when the groundbreaking Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. Courage Center and Camp Courage played a huge role in molding a generation of disability rights advocates in this community.
It’s 40 years later. Time to pass the torch. Time for kids with disabilities who I meet these days at Courage Center to wheel forward and be the new advocates. Because we still have barriers to break down. We need affordable accessible housing, jobs, education, healthcare, and accessible transportation in greater Minnesota.
Today, kids with disabilities have more choices. Camp Courage isn’t their only option. And, that’s a good thing.
But, Camp Courage and camps like them throughout the nation are even more important today than they were when I was a kid. Because they provide a chance to interact with kids who are “just like you.” A chance to build those life-long friendships that decades later will transform our world yet again, and make it even easier for people with disabilities to live our lives.
That’s why Camp Courage matters.
These comments were originally made on Saturday, Nov. 5, at A Toast for Courage, a Courage Center fund raising event whose proceeds support our Camping programs.
