This is a photo of the Adventure Fitness Camp Fire Club after their awards dinner in 2005.This evening I went to the annual awards dinner for volunteers with the Camp Fire Heartland Council. I haven’t done anything Camp Fire related in weeks, even months, and it was good to see everyone.
Camp Fire, unfortunately, has fallen victim to other events in my life. First, my crappy health this winter made it harder for me to do the typically physical activities without getting so tired that the rest of the day or evening was shot while I recouped enough to do practical things like laundry or dishes. So, a three-hour Camp Fire commitment would become six hours for me. Second, there are so many things that the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network needs these days. We’re at a critical juncture in the push towards our first treatment for the lung disease of HPS, and I felt like my attentions needed to be more with HPS work. Finally, work has been busy, and given the current climate there, I’ve increased my freelance work commitments.
The result is I MISS CAMP FIRE!!!! I miss the kids. You form bonds with the kids when you’re there weekend after weekend, and those bonds are important to building trust and getting “the mission” accomplished. Especially since I don’t have children of my own, this is an outlet for my mothering instinct.
I also feel a sense of responsibility about being involved with Camp Fire. Most of the kids in our group are blind or visually impaired. I never had blind or visually impaired role models growing up. I feel like I can do something as a volunteer that the other volunteers, well meaning and wonderful as they are, just can’t do. I can be an example of someone using alternative techniques and making it in the world – something kids as well as their parents, need to see. I also can practice a sort of tough love that I think sighted volunteers don’t come to easily. They often cave in too soon and don’t demand that a kid do something on their own to make a point. They might not always know what expectations are reasonable etc.
The other thing I really enjoy about camp fire, however, is the socializing among the volunteers. You meet the best people through volunteer projects like this one. Most people create social circles that resemble themselves. If they live in a middle class neighborhood, they tend to have friends that live in identical middle class neighborhoods. If they’re wealthy, they might circulate with other wealthy people that can keep up in the same social circles. But, on the whole, people who are willing to volunteer half of their weekend to helping out a bunch of kids, weekend after weekend, tend to place a higher importance on who you are as a person, and not whether you fit into their own social universe. They tend to be compassionate people who place more value on what you do with your life than how big a pile of toys you build. I feel more at home with people who have that sort of life outlook.
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