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loved it. It’s amazing how you can fall in love with 71 kids in one day.”
Standing on the hilltop, waiting for the buses to arrive with the campers, was like waiting for a farflung family to come home for the holidays, explained Jim McCullough. A 1986 graduate of RCHS, Jim had been a junior leader last summer and had joined the kids and their families for the Christmas party reunion and the family weekend earlier this
spring.
Kids are teachers, too
Both young men agreed that the first meeting with the campers is fraught with anxiety. The junior leaders arrive at the 4-H Center on Saturday morning, a day ahead of their charges. They’re given a report on each camper by the NIH staff and other health professionals who volunteer their time for Camp Fantastic week.
“But it’s all just words until you see them,” Jim said.
Many look like average, healthy children. But some are bald, their hair lost to chemotherapy. Some are on crutches and some are missing an arm, their limbs amputated to stop the spread of the disease. Some are in wheelchairs. Some have the needles of Hickman catheters inserted under the skin at their shoulder for doses of medication.
“I was scared of not being about to adjust, of staring. I was afraid I might stay inside myself and not reach out to the kids,” Tommy recalled.
But the anxiety is banished in a few hours by a stronger emotion.
"They steal your heart,” Jim
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