The Adera Foundation Society and Andrew Mahon Foundation have each generously matched $5,000 to make a $10,000 triple match for your donation to Easter Seals virtual and in-person camps. Please join them in making a donation today at: eastersealsbcy.ca/2020yearendgiving.
Easter Seals, a non-profit charity organization, serves some of the most vulnerable—individuals with disabilities, compromised immune systems and health related problems that require medical treatment. Through various programs and services, they help give persons with disabilities the skills and tools to help improve their independence and quality of life.
This year, the lives of the disability community changed. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, families lost resources and access to critical programs that they rely on every day, including the Easter Seals fully accessible, overnight summer camp program. It’s the one week that Easter Seals campers look forward to all year. However, Easter Seals was able to quickly adapt the program to bring the adventure and skill-building fun of Easter Seals Camps to the homes of its campers and provide the much-needed support to these families.
With quarantine and loss of resources, came increased anxiety and isolation for the disabled community. Many people with disabilities rely on set schedules and programs to maintain their mental and physical health. When routines were halted, their lives, and those of their caregivers, experienced unprecedented impact and hardship. As the pandemic continues, Easter Seals continues to find creative ways to assist and answer the great need.
Knowing Easter Seals couldn’t welcome campers face-to-face, they quickly revamped their summer camp to a virtual Camp@Home program to help their community cope with their new challenges and replace the benefit camp offers addressing isolation and fostering socialization. The online camp was such a formidable, sold out success, that Easter Seals has now committed to providing ongoing online classes, day camps, social events, and winter and spring break camps throughout the year, so as to continue to provide connection, learning and respite to campers and caregivers now when they need it most.
“I think it was awesome that the Easter Seals staff were so open and quick to adapt, from what I previously experienced, to the current Camp@Home program adaptation. I loved how the camp staff put forth 110 per cent towards a safe and fun environment. I love the Lake Shawnigan camp, but with my health concerns, it was great to have this at home event,” says Ottalie, an Easter Seals camper.
In-person summer camps in their three locations—Vancouver Island, Okanagan and Squamish—are still being planned for 2021, pending how the COVID-19 pandemic continues. In the meantime, children and adults ages 6 to 49 years old are online taking music, dance and art classes, enjoying weekly social clubs, having fun on virtual field trips in their all-day camps, taking in virtual celebration nights and dance parties.
“These camps and virtual programs need to go on. They are life changing for our children,” says Gina, mom to 25-year old Cassidy who has been going to camp since she was eight years old. “It teaches them kindness, compassion, support of one another and not to be afraid. To be able to go out in the world and be themselves. That is the most important thing. Nobody places any expectations on them and they just shine. It’s those experiences that come home and shape them, giving them the tools to help them with their day to day life challenges.”
Easter Seals BCY serves some of the most vulnerable in your community through two essential services. Easter Seals Camps offer a fully accessible program for children, youth and adults with disabilities and Easter Seals House is a home-away-from-home for those required to travel to Vancouver for medical treatment. For more information, visit www.eastersealsbcy.ca/2020yearendgiving.
