By Sally Friedman, Birmingham Jewish Foundation Executive Director
The Birmingham Jewish Foundation is celebrating a special anniversary. Five years ago this fall, The Board of Advisors of Camp Dream Street, MS asked us to partner with them to help insure their future.
Camp Dream Street, a five-day camp, is dedicated to the principle that "all children, regardless of their abilities, must be offered the chance to have fun, to make new friends, to achieve, to be accepted for who and what they are, and to learn from the challenges of group life. Dream Street at the Union for Reform Judaism's Henry S. Jacobs campgrounds in Utica, is a place where children with physical disabilities are given the chance to be children -- not 'special' children, not children with disabilities, but just children."
I have had the opportunity to get to know Dream Street and it has truly been one of the highlights of my professional career. Dream Street is for children ages 8-14 and is free of charge for the campers. After Dream Street, some of the children are eligible to attend the teen program Great Expectations, which occurs the same week and stresses independence while providing wonderful role models for the younger campers.
Dream Street has an incredible board, dedicated to making the camp an experience of a lifetime for the children. The camp's professional staff, including doctors, nurses, and therapists, is primarily volunteers. The counselors, who also are volunteers trained and paired with campers one-on-one, are teens from throughout our region.
BHAM PRESENCE
Over the years, Birmingham has been well represented on the staff. This past summer Birmingham's Elijah Thompson, Jack Pake, Rebecca Robinson and Benjamin Honan were counselors. Tyler Jaffe was on upper staff and Emily Friedman was Head Nurse. While most of the campers are from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Tennessee,
Dream Street is also open for kids from Birmingham to apply.
Jackson MS college student Miracle Buckley (pictured above) is a great example of the power of Dream Street. Miracle, who lost her legs at age seven to a rare disability that affects the development of the vertebrae, first attended Dream Street as a camper and then moved onto Great Expectations.
Miracle later became part of the staff and served as an occupational therapist assistant. Seventeen years of Dream Street certainly affected the trajectory of her life, as today she attends school to become an Occupational Therapist Assistant.
According to Miracle, "When I started as a camper, I felt at home. I did not have to worry about people staring at me or thinking I was odd because every camper there had a disability. I never wanted to miss a year." During her time working at Dream Street, she knew she wanted to help children achieve. "It is not about our issues. It is about giving all of those children a chance to forget about their disabilities and to remind them that they are just kids, no matter what their impairment might be."
If you would like to make a contribution to the Dream Street Fund to help ensure endless summers for some great kids, contact me at Sallyf@bjf.org or 205-803-1519.
