Janis Matthews, UTMB - Child Life and School Services:
- I give to the Rainbow Connection because I know it works.
- I give because I’ve seen the teenage girl who won’t go anywhere without her wig arrive at camp with her wig on. By the end of the week she can’t remember where her wig is.
- I give because the boy who has trouble walking is encouraged by his peers that he can do it and he does, right after talking his chemotherapy. As he struggles he is smiling because he did it!
- I give because after camp the little boy who wouldn’t come out of his room at the hospital is in the hallway laughing and talking to anyone who will listen.
- I give because the blind girl sitting alone on the bus on the way to camp with her head down is singing and telling stories with her head held high on the ride home from camp.
- I give because the brother of the child with cancer often feels isolated but when they are at camp they are like everyone else. Their new best friend is a child with cancer and it doesn’t matter that one speaks Spanish the other only speaks English!
- I give because parents have trusted me with their child who was dying but wanted to go to camp. He died three weeks after camp and while at camp he was called Hurricane Rolando because he was everywhere doing everything, enjoying the life he had left.
- I give because after their child has died a parent has told me their child loved camp more than a teenager getting their driver’s license.
- I give because the young college student who survived childhood cancer is still at camp as a junior counselor because camp helped her so much and she wants to give back.
- I give because a 10-year-old camper with cancer is now a cancer nurse.
These are just a few of the reasons why I give but in the past 20 years there have been hundreds. Won’t you give too? Watch the Rainbow Connection video to learn more about how much camp means to these special children and their families.
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