After two months at Camp Sunshine, another project in another state looms.
CASCO – They cut grass, erected a playground, counseled, painted, put up a rock wall and created life-size wooden cutouts of animals.
These are AmeriCorps volunteers, specifically a group of 10 volunteers whose last project was in Brooklyn, N.Y., where they worked as literacy volunteers for an elementary school.
In early May, they arrived in rural Maine to help out at Camp Sunshine.
“It’s kind of ironic,” said Kellie Jensen, the team leader. “We came here to make a difference in their lives, and it ends up they were the ones who made a difference in our lives.”
Jensen said the volunteers ended up pooling their money to purchase two bricks in the camp’s Pathway to the Future, which will go to benefit future visitors.
Camp Sunshine supports critically ill children and their families by bringing them to the camp on Sebago Lake for a week of respite, counseling and camaraderie with others who have the same illness.
The camp, which is almost 20 years old, runs 17 sessions throughout the year, addressing various life-threatening illnesses.
Mike Katz, campus director for the camp, said the AmeriCorps volunteers counseled children at the end of May during the bereavement week for families who have lost a child. He said in June they also worked with families whose children have cancer.
“The volunteers were fabulous,” Katz said. “They did some of the less glamorous jobs – put up rock walls, lugged mulch and put up fences in an area with quite a bit of ledge. It was quite an accomplishment.”
This group of volunteers is based in Perry Point, Md., one of five campuses where AmeriCorps volunteers are based. The other campuses are in Colorado, California, South Carolina and Washington, D.C.
Jensen said volunteers have to make a 10-month commitment to AmeriCorps and do four projects during that time, each averaging two months. She said there are 17 teams of volunteers based in Maryland.
“They don’t tell us where we’re going until a couple of weeks before,” Jensen said.
Jensen, who is from Indiana and has degrees in sociology and anthropological psychology, said volunteers in Maryland are from all over the country and between the ages of 18 and 24.
Caitlin Cordell, 19, is from Seattle and interested in art. She and Kendra Moore, 21, a junior at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, created and painted wooden-animal cutouts placed in wooded areas at the camp.
Although she knows art, she said that when it came to building and fencing she, like many in the group, was just learning as they went.
Jensen said time passes quickly for the group, especially since many times they work seven days a week.
The group left Camp Sunshine last Thursday, heading back to the Maryland campus.
They’ll have a few days off and then begin their third project – working for Habitat for Humanity in Delaware.
“I love it,” Jensen said. “It’s nice to travel and helping people is incredible.
“I just don’t know how to explain it,” she said.
More information about each of the organizations is available online at www.campsunshine.org and at www.americorps.org.
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