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Camp Odayin: A Heartfelt Experience
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For one week out of the summer, Camp Odayin is the “home away from home” for campers with special hearts. Among the campers are nurses who attend as volunteers sharing their skills, experience and expertise.
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Camp Odayin, named after the Ojibwa word for heart, offers children with heart disease a place where, as the mantra goes, “kids play, worries rest, fun happens.”
Sara Meslow, camp director and founder, started the camp in 2002 as a way to give children with heart disease a chance to experience summer camp in a medically safe environment – something they might not otherwise be able to do. Inspired by her own experience in receiving an implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) at the age of 29, Meslow created the camp through gifts, fundraisers and donations.
While the camp is intended to create an opportunity for children, it also offers an opportunity for nurses. “It comes full circle for the nurses,” said Meslow. “Oftentimes, they reunite with children they’ve cared for while they were sick – only now they get to see them when they’re healthy, trying out waterskiing – and the nurse gets to be the one in the boat holding the AED.”
Becky Wawra, MA, RN, intermediate care unit, described her experience. “Watching these kids run around, being involved in activities such as horse back riding, water sports, and talent shows – basically being normal healthy kids that we don’t see in the hospital – is the coolest thing ever,” she said. “It’s just great to see these kids that I so often see sick and in bed, up running around and having a ton of fun. The neat thing is that I get to be a part of giving these kids that opportunity.”
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Becky Wawra, MA, RN, second from the right, describes Camp Odayin as “a place where nobody has to worry about being different, and not fitting in.”
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A day in the life of a camp nurse typically includes attending activities with the kids, giving medications, and staffing the on-site health center.
According to Laurie Diede, BS, RN, patient care manager of the intermediate care unit, being around children and other nurses in this way presents a professional learning opportunity, as well. “It shows an interest in growing professionally because it does give nurses a different perspective,” said Diede, who has also volunteered as a camp nurse. “It’s an opportunity to see each other in a different light. It allows us to relate to one another,” said Diede.
And for nurses who have participated, this point is not lost on them. “What I learned after four years of volunteering was that the most useful skill turned out to be an ability to be make a total fool of myself while enjoying every minute of it,” said Lynn Schwiebert, BS, RN, staff nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit in St. Paul. “I was a pirate, a queen, a tacky tourist and a host of other crazy characters while at the same time making sure that every one of my campers was medically safe and taking their medications.”
And the reward is happy campers – the kids, as well as the nurses. The camp gives children with heart conditions a chance to do things that other kids get to do. It also gives them a place to be around other kids they can relate to. Many kids attend camp year after year because it’s so much fun. And kids who initially attended as campers later return as counselors.
This is a sentiment echoed by the nurses. As Schwiebert put it, “I am so lucky to be part of what I hope is one of their best life moments,” she said. “Camp Odayin is surely one of the best moments of my life.”
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“Of course basic swimming or survival skills did prove to be valuable when each cabin competed in the ‘Swamp Your Nurse’ competition which consisted of each nurse sitting in a canoe while their cabin group quickly filled it with water hoping to sink it before the other cabin groups.” - Lynn Schwiebert, BS, RN
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For more information on Camp Odayin, visit http://campodayin.org/
This article appears in Constellation, Children’s Nursing Magazine. To request a copy, contact Michelle Dilley, 612-813-6654; or michelle.dilley@childrensmn.org.
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