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Touch
of Gray - August 2002
Camp
MeadowWood
Fourth of July Sports Day at Carolina
Meadows
Camp
MeadowWood
Residents
and staff of Carolina Meadows Retirement Community welcomed
22 excited, wide-eyed children aged 6-13 to their campus in
July for the last two-week long session of Camp MeadowWoods
2002 Season.
Camp
MeadowWood, previously known as the OPC (Orange, Persons,
Chatham Counties) Children's Therapeutic Summer Camp, now
recognizes both Carolina Meadows and Carol Woods Retirement
Communities for their sponsorship of this unique program that
combines therapy and the fun of camp.
The
OPC Foundation for Mental Health sends 60 children to Camp
MeadowWood through donated scholarships. These children, challenged
by emotional and behavioral problems and/or developmental
disabilities, might not otherwise have the chance to experience
summer day camp most children take for granted.
This
is the second season Carolina Meadows has contributed its
facilities and grounds for the camp. Imagine a campsite complete
with activity rooms, indoor swimming pool, tennis court, golf
course, croquet, bocce courts and much more! And the food!
Daily snacks donated by a generous resident were followed
by campers all time favorites for lunch. The dining services
staff prepared different choices each day such as hot dogs,
hamburgers, grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches, cookies,
brownies, cake, jello, ect. Counselors selected from 3 different
entrees, salads and desserts. An ice cream social was held
at The Fairways, Carolina Meadows Assisted Living residence,
where residents and campers attended the campers' final performance
of "drama " week the first Friday and the "Olympics"
closing ceremony on the second week. Andy Lunde, a talented
Fairways resident, demonstrated his hand-carved whirligigs
– works of art in action. Each child then was presented
with his own whirligig made for them by Andy with help from
Karen Wolfe, activities staff person at the Fairways.
Camp
MeadowWood is unique. Not only do mental health professionals
staff it, but it is an intergenerational camp as well. During
the week over 45 Carolina Meadows residents and staff planned
and participated in sports, workshops, and special activities
with the children. For grandparents and great grandparents
it was a natural interaction and the children responded to
the special attention and caring very quickly.
On
Mondays, tennis players, headed by Jim Pope, handed out racquets
and balls. After simple instructions, each child was given
help one-on-one before practicing hitting balls. The ball
cannon was a big hit even though at first it was aimed too
high by mistake, shooting balls way over the fence! People
were still finding balls in the parking lot several days later.
Campers received their own sweat wristbands and balls to take
home courtesy of the tennis group.
Tuesdays,
campers played croquet (not the familiar backyard croquet)
learning the technique of the American version of English
croquet with very narrow wickets. A game of "golf"
croquet (the first player to go through a wicket wins a point
before players move to the next wicket) was not an easy trick
with other players jockeying for position. After croquet,
campers enjoyed feeding bread to huge carp in Golden Pond.
To their excitement a giant fish would leap up with a big
splash to catch the food. One camper said the carp were "like
submarines just under the surface."
On
Wednesdays, Carolina Meadows golfers, led by Bob Wilson and
staff groundskeeper Ed Blaylock, assisted "would-be Tigers"
as they tried their skills at putting and driving. Putting
was a challenge for younger campers, while the older children
found driving the ball exciting. A few found the sand traps
diverting, but learned quickly how to use a rake to cover
their tracks.
Bocce
and ping-pong were offered for Thursdays. Margaret Fallers
set down Ping-Pong rules and after practicing, the children
progressed quickly, hitting balls back and forth to residents
on the other side of the net. Carolyn Mann and her volunteers
were impressed with how fast some of the children caught onto
the game of bocce.
Lois
Morhart, Roz Rocco, Bunny Norwood, and Dot Reilly planned
the crafts for Fridays, supplied the materials, and supervised
the projects – bird treats with pinecones, birdseed,
and peanut butter for the younger campers, and 3-dimensional
artistic shadowboxes crafted from colorful assorted odds and
ends.
Special
activities with residents during the two sessions included
(1) a return engagement of Mary Roger’s hand puppet workshop
for the drama theme week; (2) a dramatic storytelling by Barbara
Rodbell; (3) olympics theme fitness exercises led by Beth
Goode, a professional physical therapist; and (4) a repeat
performance of the popular mystery ride created and staged
by Dick Ballard. This combined the fun of traveling on golf
paths on the edge of the woods in a train of nine resident’s
golf carts with the adventure of hunting for hidden artifacts.
It didn’t take long for the campers to spot the stuffed
pheasant, a fossil embedded rock, an alligator’s claw,
a deer head, and more. An "ice pop" stop at Dick
Ballard’s villa was a chance to view the huge styrofoam
mosque originally designed by Dick, Bert Morhart, and John
Rocco for the focal point lighted decoration used at the spring
special event "Empire of the Sultans" with the North
Carolina Museum of Art at Carolina Meadows.
The
campers certainly made a lasting impression on Carolina Meadows
volunteers who expressed feelings of gratitude as well as
satisfaction for the opportunity to interact with these children.
Ted
White, a loyal volunteer who showed up every day, took rolls
of film recording the 2002 CampMeadow Woods. Jean Waldner
put in writing the sentiments of residents when she said,
"as we watched the campers drive away, we were sad. They
barely touched our lives, but they did grab our hearts."
-- Pat Ballard, Resident, Camp Volunteer Coordinator
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Fourth
of July Sports Day at Carolina Meadows
Despite the 97-degree baking sun, Carolina
Meadows residents turned out in record numbers to participate
in our traditional holiday test of sporting skills on Independence
Day. Guests and relatives plus a handful of employees swelled
the numbers. All competed for twelve trophies, eleven dinners
and 22 lunches and some Bingo cash prizes.
Sports
Day Czar was Fred Govern. Directing the twelve competitive
events were Joan Wilson (Tennis), Wilf Norman (Golf - Hit
the Green), Melba Ward (Golf - Putting), Len Gibson (Bocce),
Bean Bag Toss (Pat Hobbs), Dart Throwing (Fred Govern), Shuffle
Board (Bert Morhart), Horse Shoes (Bob Nelson), Croquet (Baxter
Patrick), Ping Pong (Maury Graves), and Bingo (Betty Kent).
Several dozen resident volunteers helped in setting up and
running each activity. As many of the contestants were not
regular sports enthusiasts, all activities allowed practice
tryouts before noting competitive scores. Each sport had its
own score keeper (ties broken by drawing high card). Chief
Judge, Bob Kent, managed final tabulation, verification and
posting of winners.
Two
hundred yards of colorful flags decorated Croquet, Darts and
Beanbag locations. These were, donated by nearby Food Lion
when they opened two years ago. Uniform of the day was every
conceivable version of red, white and blue patriotic dress
combinations. In the Club Center lobby a colorful, but slouching
soft sculpture Uncle Sam sported the sign: "Complaint
Department - Uncle Sam has the final word." This was
where Bob Kent posted the eagerly awaited results of the individual
contests at lunch hour. "We had a great day," Bob
noted. "There were 365 signing in to compete between
9 and 11 a.m." Apart from the individual contests, there
were contests as to the level of participation in each of
the apartment precincts and in each of the villa precincts.
Giant trophies were awarded to Building Six and to Precinct
11 for best resident participation. Coincidentally, Building
Six and Precinct 11 were last year's winners too.
And
speaking of trophies, these have now become an added attraction
at our two Summer Sports Days. Several dozen trophies were
collected from the PTA thrift shop over the past six months.
All will be recycled again on Labor Day, the next Carolina
Meadows Sports spectacular. Residents also donated trophies:
Betty Kent's bowling trophies converted original bowling ball
trim into Bocce, Tennis and Golf awards. Ed Blalock, Carolina
Meadows Greens Keeper, donated some of his Golf trophies.
Arriving
before 8 a.m. to set-up the dozen sport venues with cold soft
drinks, decks of cards and scoring sheets, staffers Jody Hite
and Ed Blalock distinguished themselves at dart throwing.
They scored 21and 18 points respectively. This caused some
speculation, vehemently denied that they had polished their
skill in English pubs.
Now
on to some of the individual winners. Speaking of the Kents,
Bob won a second prize in Bocce, while his wife, Betty, was
first in Ping-Pong. The Kents were the only husband/wife July
4th winners on a campus of over 600 residents. The Kents covered
many sports on their bicycle built for two. Since only one
meal prize per resident was allowed, Bob Vickers upgraded
his lesser Golf victories to a dinner by winning winner first
place in Horseshoes, commenting, "All I need is something
metal in my hands to win, horse shoe or golf club.' Incidentally
on the Horseshoes court, Bob Nelson allowed the ladies to
use the lighter plastic horseshoes while the men competed
with the heavier metal ones.
There
were surprises in every sport. Some confusion arose in the
trophy/meal prize calculations, complicated by the fact that
there are eight different residents with a Wilson last name.
Luck did play a role on the Putting Green. Three tied for
first place (drawing cards to determine meal prizes) followed
by Dick Ballard who two putted each of the three holes despite
not having played a game of golf for fifty years! In the more
difficult Hit the Green contest, the most experienced players
did the worst. On the nine hole all par three holes, fifty
yards from the green is a rare occasion when experienced golfers
get a lot closer to the hole right from the tee! Dramatically,
a silver balloon tethered to the flag mysteriously took off,
skyward distracting (?) some of the most talented, but least
successful golf competitors.
A
lavish Fourth of July indoor picnic extravaganza followed
the morning contests. Several huge flag theme dessert cakes
sported strawberries (red), blueberries (blue) and whipped
cream (white). A dozen other desserts and a twenty-foot table
of traditional Independence Day entrees, sandwich bar, soups
and salads all quickly compensated for calories burned up
in the morning.
After
lunch, 36 played bingo, Edith Campany winning $15 plus two
dinners. Retreating to air-conditioned home comfort, those
not watching Wimbledon ended up in naptime recovery. -- Dick
Ballard, Resident
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