Word: wawbeek
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Dates: during 1954-1954
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...sang the children one day last week in the dining hall of Camp Wawbeek. Then chairs scraped and banged as the campers sat down to breakfast. But for these children, sitting down at table was no ordinary matter. Fifteen of them were already seated-in wheelchairs. Others carefully placed their crutches beside them on the floor before they edged onto their chairs...
...Camp Wawbeek, in the Wisconsin River Valley, is no ordinary children's camp. It is one of about 45 camps across the U.S. sponsored by the National Society for Crippled Children and Adults. This summer more than 7,000 children will attend the camps. Total operating cost this season: $2,000,000, largely financed by the sale of Easter seals...
...Mollycoddling. Camp Wawbeek, a typical camp in the group, has 80 children, aged 8 to 14 (to be replaced later in the summer by adults and older children). Half of them are polio victims, 16 have cerebral palsy, eight have muscular dystrophy, and the rest suffer from a variety of crippling ailments. Special care was taken in constructing new buildings: all but one are flush with the ground, doors are wider than normal to accommodate wheelchairs and spraddled crutches, there are railings along porches and in bathrooms. Showers, too, are adjustable for children in wheelchairs...
...Camp Wawbeek is designed to make the children less isolated by their handicaps. A registered nurse watches each child for signs of illness, and five doctors are on call. The camps are chiefly for fun-most physical therapy is done in the winter in a dozen centers operated by the Wisconsin Association for the Disabled...
...Camp Wawbeek's 32 staff members are carefully trained, and they are warned against mollycoddling. Explains the association's Executive Director Kenneth Svee: "We want it to be just a little bit rough, because society later on will be rough, too. What we want to do is give them the feeling that they belong in a group for their own sake, not because of their ailments...
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