Celebrating Advocacy!

The month of March is a busy month for celebration and awareness! March is Developmental Disabilities and Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, and paired with Down Syndrome Day (March 21st), social media is abuzz with ways to Celebrate Disability. The intention of having a month of awareness is a form of advocacy, to remind us that people with and without disabilities deserve full participation in all aspects of life, including education, employment, recreation, and civic engagement. Camp Sunshine is excited to celebrate this month with campers, their loved ones, and our incredible volunteer community. And we invite you to share with us your crazy socks on March 21st or wearing green on March 25th - we have much to celebrate! 

Our History

Camp Sunshine’s history is a story of advocacy. More than 40 years ago, a mother named Dorothy Koning advocated for her two sons with Cerebral Palsy, Ron and Jimmy. She knew that they would love to experience summer camp just like her non-disabled children. Dorothy began nudging Camp Geneva to create a space for her sons. They turned to educator Marcy Vanderwel to implement this dream. After many conversations involving leaders of Camp Geneva, special education teachers, and Hope College faculty, Marcy built a small team committed to inclusion and created a summer camp that would accept and accommodate Ron and Jimmy and 24 other campers. Marcy developed camp with a 1:1 pairing between campers and counselors, and the bond that this intimate pairing creates is what has nurtured her successors to encourage advocacy for our thousands of unique volunteers.  

Our Community

Dorothy Koning probably never imagined that her advocacy was a seed that would flourish into the Camp Sunshine community. Today, we serve more than 250 campers each year through our four sessions of summer camp, day programs, and more. We create specialized programs that focus on the physical, recreational, relational, and spiritual needs of our campers, all wrapped up in the vibrant fun of a camp experience. Beyond the surveys and metrics we use to track our work at Camp, we hear the personal stories over and over that tell how our campers are able to come to camp and be themselves - to experience authentic friendships and true inclusion that go beyond the days at camp.

In addition to ensuring that the summer camp experience is fulfilling for our campers, we also realize the great opportunity to nurture and educate our volunteer counselors. They too can benefit from the accepting environment at camp and show their authentic selves. One counselor shared with us: “During my time at Camp Sunshine, I am a version of myself that I wish to be all the time. I don’t care what others think and just live for my camper and feel such a sense of joy the whole time. That is hard to find in most other places in life.” 

Camp Sunshine has formed into something beyond a summer camp - a true lifelong community of acceptance, and we treasure each member and their contributions. 

Our Advocacy

Families of our campers - and campers themselves - continue to be our teachers when it comes to advocacy. Campers are challenged to undertake new experiences, perhaps outside of their normal comfort zone, and we see over and over again that the joy they experience over these accomplishments lasts outside of a camp session. Caregivers report that the benefits last even after they return home. Campers are more talkative, more open to new experiences, and often continue their friendships with those they met at Camp.

In the 42 years of Camp Sunshine we have seen expansion with public education, housing and employment, all the result of prolonged advocacy. In these ways and beyond, advocacy is a topic front and center for campers and their families. Many communities exist to encourage and engage in advocacy and awareness for members of the Camp Sunshine Community, including the Down Syndrome Society of West Michigan, Gracious Grounds, the Disability Networks that cover our area, and countless support groups and organizations. These organizations are a network of community that serve individuals and families affected by disabilities, and we are happy to partner with them to advance our community. 

Hand in hand with this advocacy is Camp Sunshine’s focus on training for volunteers. We know that many of our volunteers are entering into a relationship of trust with an individual with disabilities for the first time. This relationship often becomes a transformative part of the lives of these volunteers, and we seek to equip our volunteers with the tools they will need not just at camp but into the future– whether that is within their careers or in an interaction at a grocery store! 

Our Future in Advocacy

Many things have changed at Camp Sunshine since 1983, but the inspiration of our founders’ advocacy is still a touchstone for our team. We’ve always known that Camp Sunshine is not “just” a summer camp, so as we look ahead to the future of Camp Sunshine, we know it’s time to shine a spotlight on the importance of advocacy and inclusion outside of just our community but into West Michigan and beyond.

As challenges mount in our culture, sometimes threatening the erosion of opportunities built by hard-fought advocacy of years past, there are new opportunities to step forward and collectively advocate once again. 

The Camp Sunshine community is equipped to engage in that advocacy, and we recognize the challenges before us. For now, you’ll find us practicing inclusion and advocacy in these ways and more: 

• Our counselor training program goes beyond the day-to-day of Camp and includes training on inclusion, disability justice, and more. Our Four Mindsets are foundational to this curriculum.

• We’re co-hosting a screening of the documentary “Crip Camp” in Muskegon on April 15. Get your FREE tickets and join us!  'Crip Camp’ screening in Muskegon highlights disability inclusion 

• We participate in community events like hosting a table at Holland Public Schools’ Inclusion Week and other events with organizations like the West Coast Chamber of Commerce and the Lakeshore Nonprofit Alliance, representing Camp Sunshine’s inclusive identity.

• Camp Sunshine maintains a process of continued education through monthly “lunch and learns” for staff, and our board of directors meetings have a time for learning on topics associated with Disability Justice. 

We’ll continue to seek out opportunities to lift up the community that Dorothy Koning and Marcy Vanderwel first championed, and we know it will only continue to strengthen as we work together to face any challenges ahead.