[Mt-blind] [Fwd: Camping for the Blind]

Mon Jun 11 22:03:48 CDT 2007

Oh me,
If I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, someone would have to get this 
old woman up.
I couldn't do it any more.
Used to love to sleep outside in our back yard.
I just know how exciting it is to have the kids exploring.
I would love to go visiting if I could find transportation.
It would be something for my dog and I to explore together.
I don't know much about Montana.
thanks for sharing.

--Dar
www.mypowermall.com/biz/home/5779
Every Saint has a past
Every Sinner has a future

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry Hutch" <modrepro at mt.net>
To: "Montana Association for the Blind List" <mt-blind at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 8:44 PM
Subject: [Mt-blind] [Fwd: Camping for the Blind]

>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Camping for the Blind
> Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:16:42 -0400
> From: BlindNews Mailing List <blindnews at blindprogramming.com>
> Reply-To: blindnews at blindprogramming.com
> To: <BlindNews at BlindProgramming.com>
>
>
>
> AmericanProfile.com, USA
> Sunday, June 03, 2007
>
> Camping for the Blind
>
> By Chris McGonigle
>
> On a brilliant summer day along the Bitterroot River in southwestern 
> Montana, Lauren Beyer, 11, touches a frog for the first time. "Oooh, I 
> didn't know they felt like this . . . cold and slippery," exclaims Beyer, 
> who was born blind. For Beth Underwood, 57, such moments are why she 
> started Camp Eureka!, a free nature camp for blind children.
>
> The camp's origins were born out of Underwood's own tragic diagnosis. In 
> 1999, while working to develop outdoor educational programs for the U.S. 
> Fish and Wildlife Service, she noticed her vision dwindling. She was 
> stunned when an ophthalmologist told her she had chronic and acute 
> glaucoma, and that her vision loss was permanent.
>
> Underwood took some time off from her teaching job to deal with her 
> diagnosis and contemplate her future. But before long she decided to learn 
> braille and renew her teaching license. "I don't spend much time agonizing 
> over the past," says the former English instructor.
>
> Through contacts at the local office of the Montana Blind and Low Vision 
> and Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Underwood was offered a job 
> working with a blind 3-year-old named Tiana, and found great joy in 
> helping the girl discover the world around her.
>
> That's when her husband, Jack, suggested she start a camp for blind kids. 
> The idea struck a chord with Underwood. "I knew I could do it," says 
> Underwood, who has undergone several surgeries to slow the progression of 
> her vision loss.
>
> Her first few phone calls met with an enthusiastic response. When the 
> National Federation of the Blind gave her a check for $5,000 in start-up 
> money, she contacted the Teller Wildlife Refuge near her home in 
> Stevensville, Mont. (pop. 1,553), where campers would have access to 1,200 
> acres of ponds, streams, fields and nature trails. An old two-story 
> farmhouse with a large wraparound porch offered plenty of space for 
> campers to spread out their sleeping bags.
>
> Many phone calls, grant applications and meetings later, Underwood had the 
> money to start Camp Eureka!, which opened in June 2005. Underwood felt 
> giddy with excitement as cars rolled in with the campers, four girls and 
> four boys, ages 8 to 13. During the long, warm summer days, they tromped 
> through pine forests, listened to songbirds and learned about their 
> habits, rafted the Bitterroot River and studied the creatures that lived 
> along its banks, and sampled the same kinds of food that explorers 
> Meriwether Lewis and William Clark ate 200 years ago.
>
> This year, Camp Eureka! is scheduled to host a dozen campers for five days 
> at the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station in Polson 
> (pop. 4,041). Like other summer camps, there will be water fights and 
> singing around the campfire. But unlike other camps, half of the 12 
> volunteer counselors are blind. It's part of Underwood's method, to 
> provide positive role models for the kids.
>
> "Blindness is a low-incidence handicap," she says. "So a blind child in 
> Montana might never know a blind adult" without the camp.
>
> While campers are discovering the outside world, they'll also learn a lot 
> about themselves. "You hear these conversations among them, 'Are you 
> scared of the raft trip?' 'Are you going anyway?' And pretty soon you hear 
> them talking each other into things," says John Recore, a sighted Camp 
> Eureka! volunteer from Billings, Mont.
>
> Overcoming fear is exhilarating for blind campers and their parents. 
> "Lauren said it felt like Christmas," says her mother, Gwen Beyer. "She 
> can't wait to go back."
>
> For Underwood, who serves as the director of Camp Eureka!, the kids' 
> enthusiasm is contagious. "I've always loved seeing the world through the 
> eyes of a child," she says. "The fact that those eyes are blind doesn't 
> make it any less magical."
>
> Additional Information
> www.mocsi.org/campeureka
>
> Chris McGonigle is a writer in Helena, Mont.
>
>
>
> http://www.americanprofile.com/article/22236.html
>
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