"... I personally want to thank you for making Curtis Allen's week at camp a great one.
You gave him the opportunity to experience things he thought he never would again..." I
received this note from an adult caretaker after working with her patient at Camp Bruce
McCoy, a weeklong camp for persons with traumatic brain injuries. Before Curtis arrived
at this camp I wasn't sure what to expect concerning his condition. We were told he
could perform some of life's essential functions. However, he arrived slouched in a
wheelchair, unable to stand or walk, and communicated through a talking computer.
Assigned as his personal care attendant, I was tasked to change Curtis's outlook.
Unwilling at first and after careful prodding, Curtis finally went horseback riding,
canoeing, and swimming; he also learned to shoot a rifle and read a compass. After a
week of midnight bathroom runs, computer communication, and many laughs, we both
experienced an awakening of sorts. Curtis realized that he did have meaningful life
experiences in the future. I realized that I could offer hope to life's most challenged
citizens. A wheelchair-ridden fully disabled adult had the time of his post injury life.
However; it wasn't just this experience at Camp Bruce McCoy that brought me to the
conclusion of teaching, mentoring, and tutoring. It was all of them: Cathy the brain-injured
teenager that could now hit a softball, Muriel, who learned how to read her first book,
Bobby with Asperger's syndrome. The incremental improvements they made and knowing that I had influenced them was the 'why' in my decision to teach and tutor students in need.