Everything about 4-year-old Grant Abbott looked too small for the broad, brown horse he was riding, except for the wide eyes and the big grin bouncing over the top of his denim overalls.
It's the kind of excitable look that summer camps such as Camp Courage in Maple Lake, Minn., have brought for years out of disabled kids such as Grant.
The only difference this day was the audience. Leaning on the horse corral was his mother, Natalie Abbott, clicking pictures before her camera's battery burned out. Two nephews were watching pigs in an adjacent barn. Grant's grandmother monitored all of them.
Special needs camps used to be just for the kids -- providing them with understanding counselors and accessible beaches, boats and horses while giving their parents a needed break. But the latest trend is to invite entire families, who discover it can be just as restful to camp with their kids in a place where their needs are met and everyone's meals are cooked.
Joining the Abbotts from Denver were the parents and siblings of 3-year-old Eleanor Laumb from Grand Forks, N.D., 11-year-old Nick Dunham of Manitoba, Canada, and 10-year-old Josh Aydil from Hopkins. All four kids have a rare genetic disorder that can slow their growth and development and cause learning problems, heart defects and numerous other disabilities.
"No one has to make apologies here," said Wendy Dunham, Nick's mother. "You don't have to explain why your son is acting a different way. It's an entirely different form of relaxation."
Family camps growing
Special needs camps are opening across the country for children with HIV, autism, diabetes, cerebral palsy and other conditions. Listings of these youth camps have quadrupled over the past five years on www.mysummercamps.com. But officials said the fastest growth has been in camps for families who otherwise have to consider myriad details from wheelchair ramps to accessible bathrooms to medical facilities when planning traditional getaways.
"Everything is accessible," said Maria Schugel, Camp Courage program manager. "It takes a lot of the stress out of planning family vacations."
Camp Courage's first family camp drew six families in 2004. Now it provides four summer camps for more than 50 families. The camp is operated by Courage Center, a Minneapolis-based rehabilitation center for disabled children and adults.
One Heartland, a national nonprofit, traditionally offers a camp in Willow River, Minn., for children who have HIV or relatives with HIV. The goal is fun and normalcy for kids who elsewhere might be treated as outcasts. The organization saw a similar need for children with type 2 diabetes -- who often are overweight and teased -- and worked with Park Nicollet Health Services this summer to create a family camp that mixed camp fun with diet and exercise counseling.
"To be able to go to a place where it's safe and fun and everybody is dealing with the same thing? There's a lot of positives to that," said Kate Kellett, a Park Nicollet clinic manager who helped plan the event.
The Camp Courage families seemed like old friends as they waited for a tractor wagon ride from the horse ranch to the fishing dock. Three of the disabled children gleefully tackled one of the fathers, Jason Laumb, who obliged with an "oooof!" when they pushed him into the grass.
Two older sisters led horses around the pasture.
"This one is soooo pretty," said Hanna Laumb, 8.
"This one is fast!" retorted Kaylyn Dunham, 13. "This is the fastest one here."
The mothers circled to discuss what they share in common with almost nobody else. Few doctors have heard of "10q26 deletion," the syndrome that refers to the exact portion of genetic material that their children are missing.
Grant's mother, Natalie, lamented how her son's large intestine had failed, and how he needed an ileostomy, which connects the small intestine to an external bag for waste. While the surgery worked, preventing her son's nightmarish bloating, the underlying problem remains a mystery.
"It's hard when you still don't have an answer," she told the other parents. "I mean, we still don't know why we're doing what we're doing."
Schugel said the bond parents form is a major benefit of family camp, which she believes will become more popular in the next few years.
A permanent grin
Across the camp, Greg and Nicole Stover from Ramsey, watched as counselors prepared their son, Logan, for archery. A half-hour earlier, the 6-year-old with severe cerebral palsy was being towed across the lake on an inner tube with his parents and sister.
One counselor brought the bow up to Logan's wheelchair while another helped him draw the string. With a release, the arrow thunked into a hay bale 20 yards away.
"He's got a permanent grin on his face," his father whispered.
Special needs camps can be expensive, given their need for specialized equipment and preference for counselors with medical training. The three nights at Camp Courage last weekend cost $200 to $600 per family, but some camps exceed $1,000 in cost. Most have scholarship programs.
Cost and other details can be found at www.acacamps.org, the website of the American Camp Association. It lists all special needs camps that it has inspected and accredited.
At Camp Courage, the tractor ride from horse riding to boating ended with campers running downhill to the docks.
Nick, the 11-year-old with the genetic disorder, stared blankly at the water. "Are there whales?" he asked.
Rarely does his face give away thoughts. His mother couldn't tell whether whales would be good or bad.
"No whales," she replied.
Before long, the children were pulling sunfish from the water. Natalie and her mother sat on the dock with Nick sandwiched between them, casting and reeling together.
A counselor shouted as Nick snagged his first catch. Nick's mother sprinted onto the dock.
"Good job!" she yelled, camera in hand.
Jeremy Olson • 612-673-7744
