Camp Blue Skies offers adults with development disabilities chance to socialize, learn

The idea came to Dick Sesler after his son Brent graduated from Myers Park High School in 2001.

Despite having a genetic condition called Williams syndrome, Brent had plenty of friends and activities while he was in school. But after graduation, his opportunities to socialize and stay active dried up. Although Brent has a job and lives independently, he can’t drive and needs help handling his finances. His father watched Brent become isolated.

“If you don’t have a car or you don’t drive, it’s just hard to make a friend,” said Dick Sesler, a retired real estate executive.

Thinking about the lifelong friends he’d made at summer camp, Sesler concluded that his son and other adults with developmental disabilities should have a place where they could go to have fun, make friends and learn important life skills.

Sesler considered buying some land and starting his own camp. But after talking with camp directors across the country, he realized he could just rent existing campgrounds during the off season, when children were in school. People like Brent, no longer subject to school vacation schedules, could go anytime.

“Wherever there are blue skies,” Sesler said, “we could have camp.”

That was the start of Camp Blue Skies.

In the fall of 2010, Sesler rented a week in October at YMCA Camp Harrison near Wilkesboro, 90 miles north of Charlotte. Brent, now 33, was the first to enroll and enjoyed the programs – arts and crafts, hiking, fishing and drumming as well as educational workshops about the importance of good nutrition and regular exercise.

It went so well that Sesler rented another week in March at Camp Twin Lakes in Rutledge, Ga. Two years later, Sesler got so many applications that he expanded the North Carolina camp to run for two weeks. And in 2014, he added a third camp in Ohio.

About 60 to 70 campers, ages 21 to 78, participate each week. Campers pay $350 per week, including lodging and meals. But the cost is more, about $1,500 per camper, Sesler said. The rest of the expenses are covered by donations, about 20 percent from fundraisers, 40 percent from individual donations, and 40 percent from foundations such as the Leon Levine Foundation, the Reemprise Fund of the Foundation for the Carolinas and the Merancas Foundation.

Camper’s life changed

Brandon Burrows, 32, who like Brent Sesler has Williams syndrome, has been to Camp Blue Skies every year. Before going to camp, Burrows said he was “having a lot of trouble. I just wasn’t making any connections.”

But the camp “has made me a better person inside and out. I can now be more outgoing, and I have more friends.”

Williams syndrome is an umbrella term that covers multiple characteristics, some medical and some developmental. It affects a person’s cognitive functioning and ability to reason, but people with the syndrome are also often highly sociable and very loquacious.

Burrows and Brent Sesler, who have been friends since high school, were roommates for about six years before Burrows moved into his own apartment in the same building on East Boulevard in the past year. They do lots of things together, such as going to movies and eating at East Boulevard Bar & Grill, where the proprietors have become their friends. Burrows works at Brixx Pizza in Dilworth, and Brent Sesler works at Carolinas Medical Center.

“They are very happy, outgoing, sweet individuals,” said Burrows’ mother, Adria Appleby of Davidson. “I think that’s why everybody loves Brent and Brandon on East Boulevard.”

Burrows said his experiences have helped him at his job, cleaning and busing tables at the restaurant.

“I’m more outgoing than ever,” Burrows said. “I thank everyone at the camp that has made my life different. They have all contributed to what I am today.”

‘Making a difference’

As Dick Sesler gears up for the sixth year of Camp Blue Skies, he and his staff are looking for volunteers who can spend part or all of the weeks of Oct. 3-7 and Oct. 10-14 at the Wilkesboro campground. They especially need pharmacists or pharmacy school students who can help with check-in on the first day, making sure the campers’ multiple medicines are recorded and organized accurately.

He’s also looking for nurses who can help distribute medicines daily and attend to any health problems that arise. “Every camp has to have three to four nurses all week long,” Sesler said.

Other volunteers lead activities, help with supervision and spend the night in the cabins with the campers. There are usually three adults in a cabin with seven campers.

Burrow’s mother, Appleby, has volunteered at the Wilkesboro camp in the past and will be there again in October.

For parents whose children still live at home, Appleby said the camp provides a well-deserved respite. She recalled hearing from one mother who said it was the first time in 22 years that she was able to spend three nights alone with her husband. More than 90 percent of the campers return every year.

Appleby said Camp Blue Skies is nicer than the Girl Scout camp she attended as a youth. “There’s heat. There’s air conditioning. There’s real mattresses and showers. The bathrooms have doors that close.

“I think I get more out of it than the campers do,” Appleby said. “The campers make you feel so special. You feel like you’re making a difference in people’s lives.”

This story was originally published August 14, 2015 at 1:01 PM with the headline "Camp Blue Skies offers adults with development disabilities chance to socialize, learn."