I looked over the side of the wooden platform I was standing on and down to the soft grass forty feet below. The breeze gently whispered through my hair. My heart pounded and, shuddering, I pulled back from the edge and gripped the ropes supporting my harness even more tightly.
“Come on!” one of my friends encouraged us. “We have to get the king across. All hail Sir Thomas!” High in the air on a swaying wooden platform, we pounded our right fists against our chests twice, made a T with our hands, and pointed valiantly at the sky, filled with a renewed sense of determination.
My friends and I, who were in the midst of a leadership pre-orientation program for new college students, were hanging in the air in the middle of a high ropes course at Flying Horse Farms, a summer camp in rural Ohio that caters specifically to children with serious illnesses and disabilities. It was our second of three days, and we were exhausted but excited to be there. We’d spent much of our previous time getting to know each other through card games and group discussions, but this was the first time we had to work together to complete a challenging task. Our objective was to navigate the precarious high ropes course while carrying a water-filled bucket containing a small plastic hippo that happened to be the king of “Highropia” and father of “Sir Thomas,” a small boy whose grandfather was our high ropes instructor.
As we carried the sloshing bucket over sliding bridges, narrow tightropes, and a complex log roll, a single idea spun constantly around in my mind: this challenging and precarious course was designed specifically with gravely ill children in mind. This entire high ropes course, with its pulleys and harnesses and bridges and ropes, was easily accessible to children with wheelchairs, children with pumps, and children with every conceivable disease or disability. The high ropes course wasn’t the only accessible area either: the entirety of Flying Horse Farms could be used by anyone.
We had learned just how accessible Flying Horse was the day before the high ropes course, when we had been on a detailed and informative tour. With every camp feature our tour guide explained, it became more and more obvious to us that every detail of life at Flying Horse Farms had been expertly planned out with all of the needs of the campers in mind. The medical areas were state-of-the-art, the spaces between the beds were wide enough to let wheelchairs in, the showers had small tables in them, and the pool even featured a “Hatchery” for children who could not handle sharp changes in body temperature. It was perfect, and made even more so by the fact that families of campers don’t have to pay a single cent for their child to go to camp.
Flying Horse Farms is a member of the Serious Fun Children's Network, a worldwide group of similar summer camps and programs whose goal is to give seriously ill children the freedom to have fun at camp just like other kids. All of them were designed carefully and well, and all of them receive tremendous support from volunteers and donations. Serious Fun serves over 86,000 children per year, and research has shown that it does them tremendous good—a strong majority of children increase their self-esteem, confidence, and willingness to try new things after spending some time at camp.
It shouldn’t be surprising that going to summer camp is so good for these kids. It’s good for every kid, I reflected as we neared the end of the high ropes course. The only thing we had left to do was the zip line, and I was feeling much better. The beginning of this experience had been difficult and scary and it took some time to adjust, but once I realized that everything was really okay, I stopped being so nervous and started to have tremendous amounts of fun. As I was hooked up to the zip line, I felt ready to accomplish anything.
I looked down at the ground forty feet below, but unlike before, I felt no fear. My friends counted down and I pushed myself off the platform with a whoosh. Suddenly I was flying through the air with a strong headwind flinging my hair back behind my ears. I laughed and watched the ground and the lake and the sky fly past. As I zoomed on back towards the familiar ground, I felt completely free and I knew that any other kid, whether sick or wheelchair bound or hooked up to tubes, would feel the exact same way.
