Camp Sunshine volunteer counselor Sarah Rowse sits with Cooper, a young camper who has Fanconi anemia. (Courtesy photo)
There’s about 150 miles between Harvard and Casco, Maine, but that hasn’t stopped more than 70 people from this area making the trip each summer to volunteer at Camp Sunshine, a year-round camp to support children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. It’s the connection with the young campers and their families that brings the volunteers back each year.
“The day we had to say goodbye was the hardest thing I’ve done all summer,” said Gabrielle Doben, a Bromfield junior who volunteered as a counselor at the camp this summer. “You connect with them so well. You’ve hung out with them. You’ve had meals with them…You spent all that time with them and then you have to just drop it and go home, it’s so hard, because I loved counseling. Those kids were amazing.”
Sarah Rowse, also a junior at Bromfield, spent a camp session as a one-on-one counselor with a three-and-one-half-year-old boy named Cooper with Fanconi anemia, a genetic disease that can cause several serious problems, including bone marrow failure. Rowse said she became close with Cooper and his parents and siblings.
“Their parents really made me feel really comfortable around them when I met them,” she said. “They just made me feel a part of them for those five days.”
Rowse described some of the activities she helped Cooper with.
“We played with bubbles a lot. He loved them. And we went for walks around the camp to the waterfront. One time we went in the lake with him. We splashed around and he loved that,” she said. “…There were arts and crafts that we went to almost every day. That was always a blast.”
Founded in 1984, Camp Sunshine sits on the shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. According to the camp’s website, “Our focus is on alleviating the strain that a life threatening illness takes not only on the sick child but also on other family members. Families have an opportunity to rebuild their relationships together and meet other families facing similar challenges.”
Anne Marie Rowse, Sarah’s mother, started volunteering at Camp Sunshine in 2006. She heard about it from her brother, who had been going with a group from his church in Shrewsbury, she said.
“That was just an incredible experience,” Anne Marie Rowse said. “…That was back in 2006, and I’ve been going every year [since]. In 2008, we decided to open it up to other people in Harvard. Initially I went with the Shrewsbury group with my daughter, Hillary, and then we opened it up, to really St. Theresa’s Church at the time. The first year, we had one group going and there we 12 of us who were volunteering, and now we have, during the summer and throughout the year, there are probably about 70 people going to Camp Sunshine, for four or five different sessions.”
In addition to volunteering, the Harvard group has been fundraising for Camp Sunshine. The campers and the families there attend free of charge.
“This year, we’ve raised over $13,500, which is pretty amazing,” Rowse said.
The goal, she said, is to raise enough to endow one family to attend Camp Sunshine for life. That will cost about $25,000, Rowse said. Fundraisers so far have included bake sales and car washes and the Polar Plunge at Wachusett Ski Resort.
Now, in addition to raising money, the Harvard group is holding a bone marrow registry drive this Sunday, inspired by the kids at Camp Sunshine who, like Cooper, have Fanconi anemia.
“Bone marrow transplantation has come so far in the last five to 10 years,” Rowse said. “We thought, we could really save a life.”
The bone marrow registry drive, which will be conducted by staff from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, does not involve actually donating bone marrow at the time of the drive.
“They just do a cheek swab, and they analyze that cheek swab, and they check if you are a match for someone,” Rowse said. “…Then you’re in this registry, and you may get called, but know that you may get called to donate bone marrow, so you really have to think long and hard if you can do that.”
The Harvard group hopes to have at least 100 people sign up for the registry Sunday, Rowse said.
The bone marrow drive will be on Sunday, Sept. 9, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at Holy Trinity Parish. For more information about donating, visit marrow.org or call 866-875-3324. For more information on Camp Sunshine, visit campsunshine.org.
