Camp for kids after tornado

Ferncliff Camp, west of Little Rock in Ferndale, is offering an overnight camp for children from the tornado-hit areas of western Pulaski County, Mayflower and Vilonia.

The free therapeutic camp is being offered in conjunction with Camp Noah, an outreach of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota. The camp will be held June 29-July 3 and is open to rising third- through sixth-graders. Although Ferncliff is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., which is funding this special camp, its programs and camps are open to all, as are Camp Noah programs.

Camp Noah events are usually day camps for elementary-age children held in communities across the country that have been hit by disaster. The goal is to provide a place of healing. The overnight Ferncliff program has the same mission.

David Gill, executive director of Ferncliff Camp, said the two camps have partnered in the past. Last year, they held six Camp Noah programs for children in the tornado-ravaged cities of Joplin, Mo., and Moore, Okla.

He also said Ferncliff Camp has a long history of helping children who have experienced trauma. Several camps were offered to students from Westside Middle School near Jonesboro following a 1998 school shooting there, as well as for students from other sites of school violence, including Columbine, Colo. They also offered camps to communities affected by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

Gill said the staff at Ferncliff wanted to do something to help children affected by the April 27 tornado and scrambled to organize the camp on short notice with cooperation from Camp Noah.

"These are 'our' kids in our backyard," he said.

Gill said children attending this year's Camp Noah at Ferncliff will learn resiliency skills through the biblical story of Noah. They will also have time for recreation, crafts and other traditional summer camp activities. As a craft project, the children will decorate boxes of emergency supplies to take home with them.

"They'll leave the camp with it and put it under their bed," Gill said.

The camp curriculum is designed to give the children the opportunity to talk about their experiences, their fears and their grief -- if they choose.

"It's a place to debrief in a way," he said. "It's a chance for them to talk with other kids and compare experiences. Some of the healing comes in knowing I'm not the only one. There's that peer familiarity with others who have gone through it."

Gill said simply leaving the storm-hit area can offer some respite for the children.

"It's a healing thing to get away and leave the destruction they are seeing every day in their community, the houses being torn down, the empty slabs, to see a place where the trees aren't all de-limbed," he said.

Gill said he hopes the camp will provide the children with the skills they need to face other difficulties in life.

"We all have trauma in our lives. It may not be tornadoes but it could be family issues," he said. "The same skills learned at camp apply to all lessons of life in terms of developing self-esteem and values that help them weather any other storms, literal or relational, that come their way in life."

Parents can register their child at campnoah.com (under the "Come to Camp" tab) or by calling (501) 821-3063.

Religion on 06/21/2014

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