When Mallori Wisuri was 6 years old, her father was diagnosed with cancer. Now, she's involved with a Ball State organization to support kids who are going through the same thing she did.
Camp Kesem is a national organization that provides summer sleep-away camps for the three million kids in the United States whose parents have cancer. Camp Kesem’s national headquarters approved Ball State’s chapter in May — making it the third chapter in Indiana and the first for the central part of the state.
The organization will open a camp this summer, but its members need to raise $33,000 to make it free for the children. They have collected $13,545 so far, according to their website.
Wisuri joined the Camp Kesem team because she knows kids whose parents have cancer can be overlooked.
“I didn’t have an opportunity like [Camp Kesem] —an opportunity to have this kind of support system,” she said. “I wanted to help kids with the same situation I was in.”
Camp Kesem is important because it gives kids a week to focus on themselves, Wisuri said. It’s a week where they can have fun and not be [directly] affected by their parents’ illness.
These kids “suffer quietly” because they aren’t visibly sick, according to Camp Kesem's website. This can lead to a range of social, emotional, academic and even developmental problems.
Courtney Sutliff, a social worker at the IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital cancer center, said changes in a kid’s behavior, sleep and mood can all happen after a parent’s cancer diagnosis.
Sutliff was the mental health professional for Indiana University’s Camp Kesem last summer and has seen the positive effect the experience has on the children.
“[Camp Kesem] gives kids a community where everyone there has had the same experiences, but they don’t have to talk about it all the time,” she said. “They can build friendships based not only on the shared experience of a parent’s cancer, but also based on something more normal, like camp.”
Camp Kesem began at Stanford University in 2000. There are 73 chapters in the country at different universities.
Becca Hasler, a junior pre-medicine and chemistry major, is a co-director for Ball State’s chapter. Hasler became involved with Camp Kesem after an IU friend invited her to their email list. She liked the cause, recruited co-director Mickala Ritter and took the idea to the Office of Student Life to get it approved.
Indiana had one Camp Kesem at IU and another at the University of Notre Dame before Ball State's chapter opened. The two camps effectively served the northern and southern ends of the state, but that meant a large waiting list for the IU chapter.
Ball State’s chapter will serve central Indiana and potentially take children from IU’s waiting list, Hasler said.
“This is also a really good way for [Ball State] students to get involved and give back to the community,” she said.
So far, news about Ball State's Camp Kesem has mostly been spread by word of mouth. Ball State’s chapter manned a booth at the activity fair, and Hasler has sent a couple of mass emails about its efforts. The marketing and pubic relations committee has also been working to recruit camp counselors via social media.
“We’re specifically trying to recruit more guys, because you need a specific guy-girl ratio for counselors,” Hasler said. “Any major is welcome, though social work and psychology are good because these kids are going through the grieving process.”
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