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Children’s Grief Camp offers help and hope
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Kim Calhoun of Hospice House holds donated items that will be given to children attending Grief Camp in June. William D. Lewis | The Vindicator William D. Lewis | The Vindicator
By JoAnn Jones
VILLA MARIA, PA.
Hospice of the Valley’s annual Children’s Grief Camp, free for youngsters ages 8 to 15 who have suffered a loss, will take place at the Villa Maria Educational and Spirituality Center in Villa Maria on June 18, 19 and 20.
Through a grant from Humility of Mary Health Partners, Hospice of the Valley is able to put on the camp, buy supplies, provide food for the children and even provide transportation, if needed.
“We meet the needs of children who have lost someone very significant in their lives,” said Kim Calhoun, who is a licensed social worker for Hospice of the Valley, and who, along with co-worker Karen Lewis, runs the grief camp every summer. “It’s for children who have lost a parent, grandparent, brother or sister, aunt or uncle, or even a dear friend.”
“Our camp is open for any child 8 to 15,” she emphasized, “not just for those who have had loved ones in hospice.”
According to Calhoun, the bereavement department puts on the camp so that children can express themselves about their grief. The department consists of Calhoun, Lewis and their boss, Paula Durkin, who is the director of psychosocial services for Hospice of the Valley.
“During the camp, we teach the children coping skills and let the children know it’s normal to feel they way they do,” Calhoun said. “It validates and normalizes their feelings.”
Calhoun said she and Lewis are interviewing children for admittance to the camp, which may go on as late as mid-June.
“The process involves minimal paperwork,” she said, “but we have to have the child’s shot records and most-recent physical. We also have to have a swimming waiver and a liability form signed.”
When the paperwork is finished, she said, she and Lewis interview the child and do a bereavement assessment.
Calhoun said community organizations and individual volunteers help the children at camp.
“We have wonderful volunteers, about 10 or 15 of them,” Calhoun said. “Rosemary Antonucci is our volunteer manager who sets everything up. The volunteers have to be fingerprinted and have background checks as well as go through our ‘boot camp’ and mandatory volunteer training. But some of these are veteran volunteers that go way back before me.” Calhoun said she has been involved with the camp for seven years.
“The Burden Bear Ministries from the Trinity Fellowship Church make these colorful stuffed animals,” she said, holding up a red one. “They’ve made unicorns and dogs in the past. They’re changing it up this year with different patterns.”
Calhoun said the children get to keep the animals, and if there are extras, they may take one for a sibling who might be too young or too old for the program.
She added that the Community Corrections Association crochets and donates “pillow buddies” the children can take home to comfort them when they are trying to sleep at night.
For the three-day camp itself, Calhoun and Lewis plan activities to help the children remember the loved one they lost as well as to help them get to know other children who are also experiencing grief.
“We do a lot of crafts,” she said. “We make beautiful pillows out of felt, and the kids actually cut out a heart to put on the standard-sized pillow. They write what they want to say on the heart and then cover it with felt. It’s private because no one sees the heart, but they can let their loved one know what they’re thinking.”
“We also have the children do a wooden memory box,” Calhoun said. “They paint it, put stickers on it.”
“The children also make a plastic bulb ornament,” she added. “They put sand in it, a tiny figurine, and a tiny note to their loved one. It’s a memorial ornament, not a Christmas ornament, so they can hang it in their rooms.”
One of the crafts the children will do this year consists of a plastic jar with shredded paper in it.
“It will have a tea light in it with a magnetic butterfly on the outside,” Calhoun said, explaining that the legend of the butterfly has to do with transition. The Hospice of the Valley facility on Sharrott Road in Poland has its own butterfly garden for the adult patients and their families.
In addition to crafts, the camp features the Talking Stick Circle every morning, when the children — as long as they are holding the stick — can express themselves.
Most of the activities that Calhoun and Lewis plan are indoors, but they also plan outside activities for physical exercise or that the may have never experienced.
“Villa Maria has its own animals like goats and cows,” Calhoun said. “They also have gardens and honeybees. One year, two teenage girls actually gathered honey. They also have a treehouse. Of course, the children have protection [from falling] all the way up.”
“We do activities like zumba or yoga, too,” she said.
Calhoun said June’s camp also will feature horseback riding.
“Three Tines Therapeutic Horsemanship with a certified PATH [Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship] instructor will also be there,” Calhoun said. “Her name is Elizabeth and she has some volunteers to help the children. Some of these children have never had a chance to ride a horse.”
On the last day of camp, Calhoun said, the staff, volunteers and children do a friendship web in which they throw a ball of yarn to children who affirm such statements as “if you wear glasses” or “if your favorite animal is a dog” or “if you’ve lost someone close to you.”
“When we’re done throwing the yarn, we literally have to cut the children out,” Calhoun said with a smile. “What it explains to children is how we’re all connected. Many want to take the pieces of yarn home.”
“We also take a group picture and send it to the kids in the mail,” she added. “Kids love to get mail.”
Family members come to the camp for the closing ceremony and an indoor picnic on the last day. At the ceremony the children receive a camp certificate of accomplishment as well as the crafts they’ve made, letters they’ve written, and the crafts donated by others.
“Kids have heavy feelings about loss,” Calhoun said. “Anybody that is in need, we try to help.”