CAMBRIA — Next to Cambria-Wilson Road at the firehall, it’s still pretty hot despite some Lake Ontario breezes, but that hasn’t stopped campers at Camp Happiness from completing their motto.
“Create 1,000 smiles every day,” Wes Pickreign, chair of the Camp Happiness board of directors, quoted the slogan.
With this week’s high temperatures and humidity, staff at the camp have had to keep an eye on keeping campers cool — providing plenty of shade, misting devices, water breaks and other opportunities to cool down.
Camp Happiness began in 2008 as an extension of volunteer work done by the Lockport Elks Lodge #41. Now with about 120 campers coming to the week-long day camp for Niagara County residents with disabilities, volunteers from the Elks said it’s a “fulfilling” activity.
One of those volunteers, Judy Brounscheidel, said she comes back year after year because “I just love them all.”
“I’ve been coming here from the start,” she added. “I’m the plant lady. … Flowers.”
Brounscheidel brings in flowers for all the campers and shows them how to plant them in soil and water them. They take them home, and Brounscheidl says that many of them ask when they should water them and how much, which is great, “because they know they have to water them.”
Another volunteer, Donna Michael, has been at the camp for almost as many years as Brounscheidel, about 15 years, and brings arts and crafts.
“It’s the best week of the year,” she said. “It’s exhilarating, it’s giving back.”
Michael said that the people are great and they’ve got great food.
As for the campers themselves, many of them look forward to the week all year long.
Tommy S., a middle-aged man who’s been coming to the camp for five years, jumped off the bus, Monday with a letter he’d written to the volunteers.
“My name is Tom and I am writing this letter to Camp Happiness to say how much I love coming to Camp Happiness. Every year I sign up,” he wrote. “… I know how much it means to me to come to Camp Happiness year after year to have so much fun.”