AKRON, Ohio — It was a day filled with water fights, a foam pit, and a lot of smiles. That's what it's all about at the Akron Children's Hospital burn camp.
"The camps are really fun," camper Gavyn Cruise said. "You get to experience a lot."
For nearly 40 years, the Akron Children's burn camp has been a place of comfort for kids who bear the scars from painful memories.
"I was burned six years ago," 9-year-old Ashlyn Bosley recalled.
When she was just 3, Ashlyn fell backwards into a fire pit and sustained severe burns, which landed her in the hospital for more than a month. She's also had multiple surgeries and skin grafts, but says campers here feel at home.
"They can see other people that have scars like them, she told us, "so then they don't feel like they're the only ones."
The camp isn't just for kids. Jesse Johnson was burned on over 85% of his body 31 years ago and has been coming here for two decades.
"It gives me a peace of mind that somebody actually cares about us burn survivors," Jesse said. "You don't normally see, you don't normally hear about stuff like this."
As much as it's healing for campers, it's also gratifying for some of the heroes who actually helped saved some of these kids.
"They just love giving back, and this is just one day that the kids can forget about their injuries and the firefighters can just see the kids, but not in a emergency situation," retired Akron firefighter Mark Harper explained.
Harper says the most important message these kids can get is that they are so much more than their injuries.
"What we try to show in all the firefighters that come here, and even the burn survivors, that they're the kid first; they just happen to be a kid that got burned," Harper added. "A lot of people forget that and they put the burn first because that's what they see. You need to just put that kid first, and this is a great opportunity for these kids to ... still be kids, you know what I mean? They can still do the things they did before they're injured. It might be a little slower or they gotta work a different way, but fun is fun, and as long as the kids [are] having fun, that is our goal."
Dr. Anjay Khandelwal is the director of the burn institute at Akron Children's Hospital. He says the camp is healing in multiple ways for the kids.
"Events like this where you have a camp where the kids can get together, they can interact with the people who took care of them in the hospital, in this kind of relaxed, more comfortable environment — they can see their peers, other people who've gone through similar injuries and they can interact with them — they see that they can do whatever they want to do," Khandelwal said. "It makes a huge impact on these kids."
This Heartstrings story is in support of our partnership with Kindland, also known as Values-In-Action, and their Summer of Kindness Challenge. If you'd like to participate, click HERE.
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