For 17 years the Great Lakes Burn Camp program has brought together kids from around the country who’ve suffered serious burns. It celebrates their lives and helps them work through their struggles and healing together. One of the camps will be held near Kalamazoo later this year, as WMUK’s Brittany Lawler reports.

The Great Lakes Burn Camp started 17 years ago with 45 campers. The program helps kids who are long-term burn survivors as well as those who’ve been injured more recently. Twelve-year-old Burn Camper Brandon Grafe of White Pigeon, Michigan, joined the program four years ago:

[Brandon Grafe] “I get to be with a lot of other people that have been through this, being burnt and having a lot of fun with them, getting to know them a lot better.”

Cassie VanOrder is the Great Lakes Burn Camp Program Director:

[Cassie Van Order] “It started in 1995 a gentleman in Jackson who is also a burn survivor had gone to Minnesota to a burn camp, and wanted to bring it back to Michigan, so he got some of his local fire fighter friends that he knew and kind of got the ball rolling and we had our first summer and its kicked off since then.”

VanOrder is a burn survivor herself, and originally came to the program as a camper when she was 11 years old. She became a camp counselor in 2002. From there she moved to head counselor and later became programming assistant. This is her third year as program director.

[Cassie VanOrder] “When I was younger, there just weren’t very many people or many kids that I saw that were burned, so it was just an opportunity for me to get out and meet other burn survivors, and it’s really therapeutic without being a therapeutic setting like a counselors office, because just being around people who know what you’ve been through, its, its just amazing what camp can do for you.”

Kids who attend the Burn Camp usually range in age from seven to 18. But VanOrder says this year she and other staffers are excited about having a five-year-old camper. VanOrder says she hopes campers will keep coming back each year and eventually go on to become part of the staff like she did.

[Cassie VanOrder] “We have what we call an “outpost program” which is for our older campers because our goal is to have all the campers come back and eventually run the camp as program director, whatever positions we have.”

The Great Lakes Burn Camps hosts a total of two camps every year. This year’s winter camp was held over four days in February in Petosky. VanOrder says about 50 kids attended and got to do a variety of things.

[Cassie VanOrder] “This year we’re doing some new things but we always go skiing. We actually have an organization called Challenge Mountain up there who teach our kids to ski, and then we go from there to Boyne Mountain so they have a little bit of bigger hills. We also go to the Boyne Mountain indoor water park. This year one of our counselors is in the Coast Guard, so he and his commander, I guess you would call him are going to the Traverse City Coast Guard base to get a tour and hang out there for a little bit.”

This year’s summer camp is a week-long, taking place in August in Kalamazoo. It will serve about 60 campers.

[Cassie VanOrder] “We do swimming, arts and crafts, we do rope courses, we’ve ridden horses before, you know general camp activities. It varies year to year. I try to mix it up so that they don’t get bored with what we do. There’s archery, there’s bicycle riding, weird games that I happen to make up that we just play, it’s a really fun time.”

Burn Camper Brandon Grafe agrees.
[Brandon Grafe] “It’s a fun place to be at, and you have a lot of people that can work with you and actually be a part of your like life, and actually know what you’ve been through, and it’s a good way to just, feel that way with other people and go around and just have some fun.”

Burn Camp Program Director Cassie VanOrder says the camp experience is therapeutic for the kids.

[Cassie VanOrder] “I think it’s just because they’re able to come and be themselves and like when they’re out in the real world as we sometimes call it, they won’t you know wear t-shirts or shorts because they don’t want to show their scars, and then when they come to camp they’re in a bathing suit and it’s just amazing to see that growth and how comfortable they feel at camp.”

VanOrder says the Burn Camp program is always looking for volunteers and campers. For W-M-U-K, I’m Brittany Lawler.