They say the decision to shut the Easter Seals camp at Shawnigan Lake isn’t necessarily permanent.
Right now the society that runs the 38-year-old facility just says the camp won’t open next summer. Neither will one at Squamish, but the kids they serve can still go to a third camp at Winfield in the Okanagan while the future of the other two is pondered.
Why? Money, of course. Charities like the B.C. Lions Society for Children with Disabilities are having a hard time.
Camp Shawnigan has been around since 1979, hosting more than 200 children with physical and mental disabilities each summer.
The Easter Seals camps are purpose-designed: ramps, lifts, accessible washrooms, nurses, a lower staff to camper ratio than is found elsewhere.
The focus is on allowing the kids to find abilities they didn’t know they had. There are wheelchair-accessible low-ropes courses, giant swings, modified climbing walls, trampolines built into the ground so that bouncers don’t have so far to fall.
They’re not cheap to run, though. The three camps absorb 68 per cent of the society’s program spending (the rest goes to Easter Seals House, which provides affordable accommodation to out-of-town families with children in hospital in Vancouver).
Last year, hoped-for provincial government funding (it has never been consistent) didn’t materialize. Neither did the amount expected from bequests. Other sources had already dropped; the way people give has changed.
“Our fundraising is not keeping up,” says society president Charlene Krepiakevich, on the phone from Vancouver.
This is a problem for non-profits: Fundraising events might have a shelf life, but the causes they support don’t. The 24 Hour Relay, held at the University of Victoria every year since 1995, was a big-fun party and a huge money-maker at one point — it pulled in $589,000 at its peak in 2008, when Wide Mouth Mason played and author Robert Munsch entertained the kids — but hit its best-before date and was cancelled a couple of years ago.
Five years ago, organizers began charging $100 a week for camps that used to be free. (There are subsidies for those who can’t afford to pay.) The fee is up to $550 now, but that’s still a fraction of the society’s costs, which it says work out to $3,600 to $3,800 per child. Insurance, wages and food have all gone up. Using the camp for five weeks each summer, then trying to rent it out for the rest of the year, hasn’t worked.
So, the society is pulling the plug, at least for now. “We have made the really tough decision to close the program for 2018,” Krepiakevich says.
The society’s board will take the time to reflect on some questions. Does it really need three camps dotted around B.C.? Is this the best way to spend its money? There’s a lot of talk about the need for housing help or job-training for people with disabilities as they turn 18 and age out of government care.
The board will consult the campers’ families and the Shawnigan community as part of the decision-making process, Krepiakevich says. “We know how cherished these camps are.”
Still, while she doesn’t mention it, it’s hard to ignore that this one sits on valuable property — several acres of lakefront, plus a couple of big fields across Shawnigan Lake Road — and dealing with its aging infrastructure after a year in mothballs would be a challenge.
The financial difficulties that led to the decision to close the camp don’t surprise Mike Smith, but he sure wishes his Malahat Lions Club had been given a heads up, given a chance to help find a solution before things got to this point.
“It just seems so sudden,” he says. “I would have hoped to hear something last year or the year before saying: ‘This is happening.’ ”
The Malahat Lions have an emotional investment in the camp, not to mention sweat equity. Every Wednesday morning, half a dozen of them volunteer there, fixing decks, repairing floors, cutting the fields. They just moved their clubhouse to the camp a month ago. They’re not happy.
Likewise, the area’s MLA, Sonia Furstenau, has been hearing from Shawnigan Lake residents. “Clearly it’s a valued piece of our community, but even more so it’s valued for the services it provides children with disabilities,” she says.
It’s disappointing that it has come to this, she says.
It’s also disappointing that in a society as wealthy as ours, so many services for the disadvantaged depend on constantly scratching for donations.
