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The Arc Alliance provided early intervention services to him through The Arc Alliance Children’s Services.

Last week, the Independent Fiscal Office reported that they estimate that the state’s revenues will be $520 million short of the revenues predicted for next year’s budget. That prediction came in its initial revenue estimate, released on May 3. A final and official estimate will follow June 17 and the governor’s budget office will issue the final revenue estimate when the budget is completed.

You can read more about the announcement in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

The state is required to pass a balanced budget and will have to address this shortfall. This the time that legislators and the administration will be deciding on their priorities for the budget- what programs they will protect from funding cuts.

The deadline to pass a budget is June 30 – only 9 weeks away! 

Now is the time to tell your elected officials that you feel quality early education needs to be a priority for Pennsylvania and share with them the impact that quality early education is having in your community.

Telling your story is easy – visit the PA’s Promise for Children website for tips on what you can share. You’ll find questions that you can answer for parents, teachers, and providers.

• Find contact information for your elected officials at www.legis.state.pa.us.
• You can also find contact information for the Governor      at www.governor.pa.gov.

Here are other resources that you can share with your story:

• We Are Pennsylvania’s Future video. The “We are Pennsylvania’s Future” video      shares from the children’s perspective how investments in quality early      education build a brighter future for Pennsylvania’s families, businesses      and communities. You can view the video on the PA’s Promise for Children YouTube      channel.
• Pennsylvania      Results in Early Education 2011-2012 (PPT) – powerpoint slides with outcomes from      Pennsylvania’s early education programs that you can add to your      presentations
• The Heckman Equation: Invest in early childhood      development: Reduce deficits, strengthen Pennsylvania’s economy. This brief      references Pennsylvania data to reinforce Nobel Laureate      Heckman’s argument that making greater investments in young children      creates greater returns in education, health and productivity.
• Ready Nation: Building a Stronger Commonwealth: The      Business Case for Investing in Pennsylvania’s Youngest Learners. This brief shows      how investing in quality early education fixes the skills gap by building      children’s skills and alleviating toxic stress which produces long term      development and health issues.

Thank you for your continued commitment to Pennsylvania’s young children!

Today I went to the Reading Phillies game it was a lot of fun even though we were only able to stay till the fifth inning.

I got to ride on the bus with one of my friends the bus ride was about 20 min. to a half hour long.

When we got there and I was waiting for my class a player came up to me and gave me a autographed baseball card and his personal hat autographed as well.

Now let’s talk about my favorite subject lunch I had chicken fingers and enough french fries to feed the whole entire US Army. It was a lot of fun I wish I could do it again tomorrow but I can not

see you next week Chandler

Chandler and Satchel writing blogs.

Hello everybody. This week is my second to last week blogging for The Arc Alliance and my last week working with Satchel, so I am going to recap my experience as a blogger for you.

My first day at The Arc Alliance was a little crazy because my boss, Scott, did not know what to have me do as a job. Before I could even start trying anything I had to watch training videos and fill out necessary paperwork.  The rest of the day I spent running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I tried to do a couple different things that the other volunteers were doing, but nothing really worked. The job coach, she assists the students here, tried having me fold brochures, but it went as well as concrete flavored ice cream. Having incredibly limited control of my arms quickly showed that folding wasn’t my forte. Next I tried shredding documents. It didn’t go well either, but the job coach and I still had fun anyways during our early struggles.

Between the second and third week Scott came up with the smartest idea I’ve ever heard of since chocolate ice cream, which as we all know is very yummy and fantastic. Scott was going to have me blog for The Arc Alliance about my life and my experiences living with cerebral palsy. Hopefully my input on everyday life would inspire people to support those living with I/DD’s and show that someone like me could be just as productive and talented as the next employee in a workplace.

I was excited to start, but that excitement quickly turned to frustration. Scott set me up in my own office with a computer, and jacked the desk up on books so my wheelchair would fit underneath. In order to write blogs I would have to use Dragon Dictation. Dragon is an amazing program, but it is slow and makes me tired very easily. Mr. Cartwright was here to assist me for that first day, but it took forever to set everything up and I couldn’t even finish a whole paragraph. That day my back was hurting as well. It hurt so much that it wasn’t fun or possible for me to work. I’ve mentioned this before, but sometimes I have back spasms. It’s not fun when this happens to me because unlike other people I cannot just stand up and stretch. I have very limited independent mobility in my torso, so my only solution to the problem is Tylenol. I spent that whole first day struggling with Dragon and in a great deal of pain. It was probably my least favorite day working here in the past seven months.

My second week working wasn’t much better. Dragon was still as slow as a tortoise on the old computer I was working on. I was also very lost in my writing and didn’t know how to present my ideas and struggles in detail. In two weeks I only managed to write one blog that was a single paragraph long.

After this I became very determined to improve my writing. My second blog was a little better at a whopping three paragraphs, but my subject matter wasn’t very fun or interesting. I didn’t really have a grasp on what I should be writing about yet. My topics were so scattered that we couldn’t even come up with a title for my first two blogs. Scott was trying to help, but my thoughts were still all over the place. I had so much I wanted to say about my experiences, but didn’t have the patience to stick to just a single idea.

I was considerably faster at writing by my third and fourth blogs. Scott helped to write them during those two weeks though, because I was still having bad back spasms and was in too much pain to have the patience for Dragon. I ended up writing six in total before Christmas vacation, but I still hadn’t accomplished my goal of detailing any of my struggles.

After Christmas vacation I met Satchel who started working alongside me every week. He is a communications major so he had a lot of experience and guidance to give to me. We would still write the blogs using Dragon, and Satchel would sit with me and work on my writing skills, word selection, and how to send the most meaningful messages. Our first blogs together were short, but much more to the point that I had originally intended. We created a method where we would first just casually talk and discuss what had been happening in my life, and then in the end write about the most interesting matters we discussed. This helped me become more detailed in my writing, which made my blogs longer and more interesting. Our blogs progressed from being 300 words to being over 800 words in a matter of a single month. Hopefully you guys don’t mind the long blogs. I always have a lot that I want to talk about and only a single session to do it in.

I’ve learned a lot of things during my time working at The Arc Alliance. First of all I learned that folding paper isn’t easy with cerebral palsy, neither is grabbing individual pieces of paper to shred surprisingly. Secondly I learned, with some help from Satchel, that my disability didn’t have to be a sore subject. When presented in the right way it could be lighthearted and funny for readers to learn about some of my less fortunate moments. Thirdly, I learned that I have a talent and passion for writing, and love being humorous. I like to think that I am hysterical in my blogs; please correct me if I am wrong.

My proudest moment happened one day when I checked the analytics (amount of visits to the page) of a post that Scott had written about something. I compared his analytics on his post to that on my blog. My blog had ten times as many hits. I don’t mean this in a bragging manner, and I want to apologize to Scott for being more popular than him, but this made me really appreciate the work that I was doing and made me feel extra important. It’s nice to know that at least some people are receiving the messages that I am delivering about living with an I/DD.

I love the progress that I have made in my writing, and want to tell you about some of my extreme ups and downs that I have endured over the last seven months here.

In the end my favorite part about the writing process has been creating new and exciting ideas. My least favorite part is not being able to type on my own. Dragon makes me slow at writing and causes me to forget what I am going to say next.

My favorite blog of the whole year was the one about my adventures at Disney World because it was an awesome trip. My least favorite blog was the one about the time I tried to get a new wheelchair because that blog was straight up depressing. Nobody likes going to court.

In the past seven months I have learned that anything is possible if given the correct tools. Just today Satchel showed me a video of a teenager with cerebral palsy who is a professional comedian. He creates humor by making fun of his own disability. This makes me confident that someday, given the proper tools, I can earn a living from my writing.

As far as a job goes I learned that working in an office is hard work, but it is a lot of fun if you are friends with you coworkers. My least favorite part about my job here is leaving at the end of the day each week. I always wish I had more time or worked more often.

I like to think that my work here as shown other people with my disability that if you put your mind to anything, no matter how hard, you can figure out a way to do it. I aspire to continue writing because I think that it’s fun and important for me to set an example for other people with I/DD’s.

Finally, I want to say that I really appreciate the amount of people who read my blog weekly. My teachers have begun talking to me at school about them because they like them so much. Today was Satchel’s last day with me so for my last blog I am going to be working independently. I really want to thank The Arc Alliance, and especially Scott Camilleri for giving me the opportunity to have this experience. I have truly found a new passion. I also wanted to give a special thank you to my Aunt who has been my biggest supporter through this extravaganza.

Check it out next week as I blog independently!

Chandler and Sachel

Today we’re going to recap the 2012/2013 school year, and I will also discuss how I survive gym class in a wheel chair.

Let’s start with something awesome regarding the school year. As of today we’ve got 41 days left of school! Now let’s move onto something bad. We still have 41 days left of school! As much as I want it to be summer it is going to be kind of sad when this year ends, as I will not get to see some of my favorite teachers anymore after this year.

Overall this school year was a doozy, both good and bad. From the start of the first day I knew this year would be tougher than the last. It was my second year in the 9^th grade center, but my classes were going to be harder and my aides were going to push me further than I had ever been pushed before.

I caught very few breaks this year, but the ones I did catch were early. In the fall we had a quick three days off without it even snowing. First we had two days off because of a transformer fire in the school, and then the hurricane gave us an additional day off in late October. The free time was awesome, but now I am paying for it because we are getting out three days later for summer than we would have without those days off.

Some valuable lessons I learned this year were to be on time, and don’t make Mrs. Green angry! I’ve mentioned this before, but Mrs. Green is a Special Education teacher at Spring-Ford High School who works with me very closely.  Throughout the year I had a tendency of showing up to gym ten minutes late. Mrs. Green was not pleased with this at all. She would get mad, and when she’s angry it is like Mt. St. Helens on a really bad day! In order to make her happy again I would have to suck up to her for the rest of the day. She is a great teacher when I’m on time, but sometimes can be exhausting. She works me really hard, especially in math. I hate math. Despite math, I want to thank Mrs. Green for a great two years she has spent working with me and I will miss her greatly next year.

I want to thank some of my other really helpful teachers from this year who helped me survive the busy hallways and pushed me to achieve more. First I want to thank Mrs. McGinnis, who as I previously stated is the reason I get up in the morning. We’ll leave it at that. Second I want to thank Mr. Cartwright because if I don’t say this he will be very displeased. Just kidding he really is one of my favorite and most helpful teachers. Third is Mrs. Groshardt who helps Mr. Bergman, who is my Science teacher. Mr. Bergman is tough as nails, but he is really smart. He gets mad at me when I fall asleep during class. He makes me jump every time by calling my name really loudly while I’m snoozing. The funny thing is I sit dead in the front of his class. Mrs. Groshardt is Mr. Bergman’s classroom aide. She is fantastic to work with and tries her best to keep me awake. She is another one of the reasons I come to school in the morning and actually learn stuff about science.

We can’t forget the best principal in the whole entire world, Dr. Weidenbaugh. She is hilarious and really friendly. She sometimes hangs out with me at lunch and talks about the work I do at The Arc Alliance. She is very intrigued by my blogs. I’m very lucky to have a really supportive principal working at my school.

Lastly I want to thank my Special Education Supervisor. Her name is Dr. Mason. To compare her to another person she is about as great as my mom, who is obviously amazing. Thanks to Dr. Mason I get to come to The Arc Alliance and write these blogs for everybody. She helps run the Spring-Ford transitional program that assigned me this job. Thank you so much Dr. Mason for helping me gain confidence in my writing and be able to write for all these people.

Next year I am moving into “the big building” which supports the 10^th-12^th graders. As I said before, I spent this year in the 9^th grade center. The 9^th grade center is all one floor that is separated into sections by ramps. Next year I am going to have to use the elevators! I’m not scared about it, but it will be different. Next year when I get into that hallway I am going to have to drive as fast as Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the Daytona 500 in order to make it to classes on time. My biggest fear is being late again, everywhere, but that shouldn’t happen as long as I don’t ever stop moving. Another bad thing going into next year is my classes are going to be way harder. I don’t know what any of my classes are yet, but I am definitely still taking history and gym.

Now I know a lot of you must be curious how I go about gym, well the class is set up like this: It is called Adaptive Gym. It is a four on one class, meaning there is one teacher and four students in the class. The students are me and three other kids from my learning support class. On a normal day when I’m not incredibly late or driving full speed to make it on time, which doesn’t happen very often anymore, I usually start class by driving some laps around the gym. This gets my chair nice and warmed up, and gets my hands loose from all the use of the joystick. The other kids do sit-ups during warm up. After I’m done my laps I get to do the counting for the sit-ups since I can’t join in.

Right now we are practicing for the Special Olympics which is exciting. Some of the events are the tennis ball throw, the softball throw, the 50 meter run, and the 100 meter run. Amanda, who works alongside me at The Arc Alliance, is in my class and she throws and runs really well which is cool to see. Personally the events I work on are the tennis ball throw and the 25 meter wheel chair race. Every year, except for last year, there has been nobody to compete versus me in the race. Last year I actually had a competitor. This kid actually drove his chair using motions in his head. His chair had a special kind of joystick that moved the chair using the motions of his neck. In order to go straight the kid had to look perfectly straight forward, and to turn he had to look to either side. I still don’t quite understand how it worked. Not to brag, but I beat him fair and square every time. I shouldn’t discredit his athletic skills though because driving those head joysticks must be really hard. This year it’s just me in the race so surprisingly I don’t lose all that often.

Anyways, I just wanted to thank all of the faculty at Spring-Ford High School who read my blogs and help me out day to day. Also, I hope you found my gym class story interesting. Check out my blog next week as I recap my entire internship thus far blogging for The Arc Alliance.

Rep. Gene Digirolamo with Tim and Carol Lawrence

On April 9th 2013 in Harrisburg Pennsylvania as part of The Arc of Pa’s SAGA day Representative Gene Digirolamo was presented with the legislator of the year award. This is an annual award presented to the legislator who has made significant advancements for individuals with disabilities.

Tim Lawrence, a volunteer with The Arc Alliance was invited to assist in presenting Representative Gene Digirolamo of Buck’s County with the legislator of the year award from The Arc of Pennsylvania. Tim is an energetic young man who is outgoing and enjoys being with people. Tim has Downs syndrome but does not feel like it defines or limits him. He feels that is but just one aspect of who he is.

Tim was not sure of what to expect when he was asked to participate. Tim was unsure if he was going to be asked to speak at the event but really wanted to address the attendees. Unfortunately, timing did not allow for Tim to speak.

When Tim arrived at the event he was surprised that there was such a large appetizer table. Tim enjoys various types of food and loves wings. He was disappointed that wings were not on the menu! Early in the event Tim and his mom Carol Lawrence were invited to participate in the photo opportunities. Tim spoke with Rep. Digirolamo and enjoyed spending a few minutes with him. Tim spoke to Gene about special needs and what he thought was important to people with special needs. Tim also was able to meet several other legislative members and tell his perspective. Tim is not a shy guy so he really liked meeting everyone.

Maureen Cronin, the executive director of The Arc of PA introduced Tim, his Mom Carol and presented Rep. Digirolamo with the Legislator of the year award. Being up on the stage was very exciting for Tim and he hoped that his mom was going to receive an award. Tim thinks his mom is the best mom ever!

Rep Gene Digirolamo, legislators and Tim and Carol Lawrence

Representative Digirolamoaccepted the award and thanked Tim for participating in this prestigious event. After accepting the award Tim was invited to meet other legislators who were in attendance and have his photo taken with the group.

Tim’s favorite part of the night was the appetizer table and being able to have seconds. After the event Tim told me that he might like to be in politics someday, especially if you get to go to events like the one in Harrisburg, receive awards and get to eat free food! Tim’s least favorite part was that he was not able to address those in attendance and present the issues he feels are important to people with special needs.

If Tim would have been able to address those at the event he would have told them how important team work is and how critical communication and respect for everyone regardless of ability. Tim wants to be treated just like everyone else and have the same types of opportunities in life that we all expect. Tim also sees how important safe transportation is for individuals with disabilities and would like to see it more widely available to people. It’s very hard for people with disabilities to always depend on parents for transportation to work or other activities. Being independent and able to go places is a value Tim sees as important for everyone. He also feels that it is important for the Legislators to pay close attention to the state budget and make sure that people with disabilities are not hurt by any cuts. Tim is fearful that cuts made will affect agencies, camps and services critical for daily life.

The Arc Alliance was proud to have Tim represent the agency and all those we serve. Tim is a very good representative and advocate for individuals with disabilities. We thank him and his Mom for participating in the Legislator of the year event

The Arc Alliance is an awesome place to work. I swear I’m not sucking up when I say this (even though I am), but Scott is the best boss in the whole entire world. Why you ask? He just got a new computer for me to blog on that runs Dragon Dictation really fast! At the Arc Alliance Satchel and I work in our own office which is really cool and big, but the computer we wrote our blogs on use to be really slow. Right when we started our blogging project in January Scott told us he was going to get a new computer, but that it would obviously take some time. Let’s just say that using Dragon Dictation on the old computer was about as fast as using a Commodore 64.

When attempting to write these blogs my awesome assistant, Mr. Cartwright, would always encourage me to try and use Dragon Dictation to work on my sentence structure before Satchel arrived. Some mornings on the old computer it would take me 15 minutes to write one sentence using this method. Pretty much every single word that I would say into the microphone would get messed up. For example every time I tried to dictate the word “week” the computer would write the word “Steve.” It was pretty inefficient.

Satchel usually comes in about 45 minutes after I arrive, and most times he would need to delete everything I had written so far and re-write it because it wouldn’t make any sense. Together we would always try and use the microphone to dictate the blogs, but that was usually short lived.  The first few mornings working together Satchel and I would laugh hysterically at all the nonsense mistakes that the old computer would make.  However this quickly turned into frustration, and we would literally quit trying to use the microphone in two minutes. This meant that I would dictate these blogs to Satchel and he would type them for me. It was an awesome system, but not the one we had intended for this project.

After a couple months we had stopped using Dragon all together and I would try and type my blogs on the keyboard before Satchel arrived. It’s really hard for me to type, and I have to move really slowly with my hands to hit individual keys. If you can imagine typing everything with one finger; that is similar to how I type. However this problem was solved in the second week of March when Scott kept his promise and we got a brand new computer to blog on! It is really fast, and I can now work at a normal pace every morning before Satchel arrives. It is hard to explain the relief that I have being able to use Dragon at a normal pace now. When I speak into the new computer Dragon instantly responds. There is almost no lag, and it doesn’t randomly delete my entire project anymore!  Truthfully though, I still usually only get a paragraph done because Satchel and I like to work on the subject matter together. Though this seems like a small victory to most people, it is a huge victory to me and provides some much needed stress relief.

Now that my computer is so fast I would like to take the time to tell you more about myself and my family in a way that I couldn’t do before because I always had to be brief.

You’ve seen my picture on the website, but I’ve never formally told you about myself. I’m 16 years old, but my 17^th birthday is in ten days, April 20^th. I am a big fan of school, which most people think is weird for a kid my age. My favorite subject at Spring-Ford is reading because I like to read, go figure. My least favorite subject is Science because I am currently taking Earth Science, and believe it or not rocks and tough terrain do not mix well with kids in wheelchairs. Right now we have a substitute teacher for my Science class, so it’s even worse than usual. If my regular Science teacher is reading this, please come back soon!

At home I have two brothers, one’s my twin (he’s older by 30 seconds). My younger brother is between 15 and 16, but I honestly forget. I live in a normal house with my mom and dad. They are awesome people! My mom is a banker. My dad is an electrician. He hates it. He is currently going to school to further his career. I am really proud of him for that. My parents split time evenly helping me out, but after school, while they still work, I normally have a home health aide who assists me. My brothers help me out a lot also. They will set me up with the computer when I get home, and get me drinks when I’m thirsty. I don’t like being without my twin brother Lucas. He takes a lot of care of me and is very protective. He is my “enforcer.” Lucas is a big time comic book fan which I think is cool even though it’s not my cup of tea. When we’re home we spend a lot of time alone in our own rooms doing our own thing, but we never fight and get along really well because of this. I don’t see my younger brother Nicholas a ton because he has a job and works really hard after school. He spends a lot of his hard earned money on video games, which is one of his hobbies. It’s awesome for him, but not so much for me because I can’t really play video games. Using a controller would be nearly impossible for me to do which is a bummer, but what am I going to do? I have my own hobbies anyways.

Since this fast new computer now allows me to work really efficiently I’ll tell you a few more random details about myself. My favorite food is shrimp scampi. My least favorite food is nothing because I absolutely love food. My favorite movie is Fantasia 2000, but it used to be Toy Story 2 before that. My favorite color is red, but today it is purple. It changes a lot. My favorite hobby is blogging, and doing different things on the internet. I am very computer savvy.

I hope this gives you a better feel for who I am outside of just a blogger, and stay tuned for my next blog which will be a recap of my entire school year and what I learned about life.

You get a very stinky problem!

Hopefully your stinky dogs stay outside when they are sprayed directly by skunks; unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me!

My family was watching a dog this past week that was outside playing when he got sprayed by a skunk. He then immediately sprinted into the house and tried visiting with anyone who was home. Unfortunately everyone else was faster than me at getting away because I was in my chair, and I became the object of the dog’s attention! My brother ran and hid in his room immediately after recognizing the scent, and my mom was not around where I was. This left just me and the stinky dog to hang out. Skunk up-close does not smell the same as it does from afar for those of you who have never been sprayed. The actual smell is close to that of burning wood, and is extremely pungent. Luckily for me the dog jumped all over me and rubbed his whole body against me and my chair! It was awesome…..NOT!

The dog smelled so badly that the entire house reeked. Eventually I got cleaned up, and my mom attempted to cleanse me and my chair of the smell. Unfortunately though, my family and I were around the scent for so long that day that eventually we got used to it and stopped noticing it altogether. This of course caused some problems.

Thinking I was all set and smelling amazingly as usual, my mom put me on the bus and sent me to school the next day like normal. My first class was art, and after I got off the bus I cruised down the long halls to the art classroom. I went about class as usual, but was a little curious why Mr. Cartwright (my aide, as mentioned in previous blogs) was sitting all the way across the room from me.

Apparently 24 hours later, I still smelled so badly that the janitor and the principal thought there was a skunk in the school, and searched the halls up and down for the animal. Eventually they tracked the smell, and me, all the way down to the art room just using the odor in the halls. By 8:30 a.m., only 45 minutes into the day, my mom was at the school and picking me up to take me home. I must have smelled horrible for this to happen, but I literally was so adjusted to the stink that I had no idea. Unfortunately for Mr. Cartwright, and his old factory sense, he didn’t get so lucky and had to spend almost an hour with me wondering why I smelled so badly. Sorry Mr. Cartwright!

I went through all of this trouble, and as I said before the worst part was that it wasn’t even ours. If that wasn’t enough of a hassle, two weeks later while we were still watching it the dog got sprayed again. Just my luck…

Thankfully I have a good sense of humor, and the potentially traumatizing experience became a hilarious story for me. I can only imagine how some people might have reacted to being told that they need to go home because they smell too much like a skunk.

I like to blame the whole thing on my senses for becoming adjusted to the scent. If you were curious though, I did return to school the next day smell free.

On a brighter and better smelling note, I’m getting really excited for summer now that spring is finally here. The weather is almost nice; the sun is starting to come out even though it is still cool. I’m really happy that I get to relax for a couple weeks before I start camp (refer to my old blog for this adventure). However, I’m especially excited to set off fireworks this Independence Day! Every year the Elk Meadows community puts on a massive fireworks show. The fireworks are done by a professional who just happens to be a really good family friend. For the past two years we have had a picnic with lots of awesome food and set off the fireworks, just me, my mom, and the firework guy. The best part is that they let me control the remote control detonating device. The remote is connected by wires to a box full of industrial fireworks; the ones that make the massive explosions hundreds of feet high. If the wire or remote doesn’t work for some reason the professional has to light them manually, which is really scary because they could explode so easily. When everything goes right though, it is awesome! Being the remote operator makes me feel really important, as it is my job to entertain the entire community.

Hello everybody, this week my blog will be about how I navigate summer camp.

My summer camp is called Variety Club. It is located in Worcester, PA. It serves kids ages four through 21, so technically it caters to some adults. I go for six weeks during summer vacation, but I only stay overnight for two of those weeks. The two weeks are separate, not back to back, so I do get to spend some time with my family also. My brother Lucas comes to stay overnight with me during those weeks. He helps me out a lot with day to day life at Variety Club. Without him I don’t know if I would be able to spend the night. He acts a security net for me and keeps me feeling safe.

The way that the camp organizes the kids is that every other week the camp plays host to one of two specific handicap groups. One week is for the physically handicapped, such as me, and the next is for the mentally handicapped. These groups rotate all summer, so I actually go to camp every other week.

The camp itself is a lot of fun! We play a whole lot of games, catch some serious rays, and enjoy the water. My favorite thing about summer camp is definitely swimming, which I will explain how I do later. Do you like to go swimming? I would hope so! My least favorite part about Variety Club is sleeping over because it’s hard to get any sleep with tons of other excited teens sharing a cabin with me.

Variety Club offers a large variation of programs to do every day based on age group. I am not old enough to participate yet, but my favorite program that I am excited to partake in, in the future, is the Vocational Program. The vocational programs allow the physically handicapped older teens to work and be trained in woodshop, cooking (cooking meals for the entire camp), outdoor/landscaping, and baking for weekly bake sales to raise money. The four programs all run for two weeks at a time, so eventually I will get to spend a good amount of time doing each of these four trades. My aid Mr. Cartwright actually works at the camp in the woodshop. He says that they make things such as birdhouses, stools, and any other wood appliance that the camp needs. I can’t wait to work with him and the power tools!

When I’m there I wake up at around 7 a.m. every morning. It is hard to wake up because of course I’m a teenager and love my sleep, but eventually they drag me out of bed and put me into my chair which wakes me up pretty well. Breakfast is served during this time. Of course it is the most important meal of the day so I never skip it. Also the food is awesome, which is surprising for summer camp. Every single day that I can I eat a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich, but really the eggs and pancakes aren’t bad either. I wish they served breakfast sandwiches every day though.

After I eat breakfast I go to ESY (Extended School Year). I learn math, reading, and spelling. I thought originally that it would be boring to have to learn during the summer. However surprisingly, the teachers don’t drive me crazy and I actually enjoy it more than real school. I spend half my day usually at ESY so I can stay caught up with other kids in my grade.

After ESY I go swimming in the outdoor pool. They use to have an indoor pool, but the building is old and the pool is no longer functioning. Of course I can’t swim by myself due to my cerebral palsy. They way that I swim is someone holds me in the water and moves me around so I can play. I can go underwater when they dunk me, which is definitely favorite part about swimming. I can hold my breath for an entire minute! Every day I swim for about an hour so the person holding me gets really tired arms, but it is totally worth it for me. The other kids with physical disabilities join me and we have a lot of fun enjoying the sun and water with the help of the counselors.

Once swimming is over and I have showered to get rid of the chlorine smell I relax for a while. I either hang out in the cabin or roll around camp in my chair. I have gotten pretty good at off-roading in my chair, and I take it all around the camp including into the woods. A lot of times we do outdoor activities, so I really get to test the chairs driving limitations.

After I’m done cruising around camp and talking to my friends it is time to eat again. For dinner I go back to the dining hall, and hang out and eat with my brother and friends. They serve anything from mac and cheese all the way to pizza, so I never complain.  After dinner I’m pretty full so I usually just relax again.

At night time we have campfires, talent shows, storytelling, movie watching, and of course we make s’mores. I love s’mores! Usually after spending an entire day in the beating hot sun and expending myself physically I am exhausted. I am ready to go to bed with everyone else at about 9:00 or 9:30, so I then retreat back to my cabin.

Summer camp, so far, has been an amazing experience in my years of participating. The counselors are incredibly helpful when we do physical activities, and it is awesome that they bring me into the pool to swim. I am pumped to return this summer for six more weeks!