Rockford’s tournament supports Camp Awakening

September 3, 2013 · 0 Comments

The winning foursome included Carlo Salvadori, Mike Stanton, Jason Randall, Joe Mariotti, at 12 under.

By Jeff Doner

Golfers in the area found their way to Silver Lakes Golf Club recently for Rockford’s golf tournament in support of Camp Awakening.
Camp Awakening is a registered charity that provides summer camp, leadership and family programs for children and youth with a variety of disabilities and mobility issues including cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, amputees, kids who might have vision loss and seizure disorders.
“Anything that impacts a child’s mobility,” said Tracy Morley, executive director of Camp Awakening. “It’s a unique integrated program, so we are just one cabin group in existing traditional mainstream summer camps that are all able-bodied campers and we have children with physical disabilities. We’re just one cabin group in camps of over 200 people.”
Camp Awakening operates four programs throughout the summer: Boys summer camp for 9 – 18 year olds at Camp Kilcoo outside of Minden, a girls summer camp program for 9 – 18 year olds at Camp Oconto north of Kingston, a leadership retreat for 19 – 24 year olds in Orillia on the shores of Lake Couchiching, which helps with the area of transition into adulthood, and this year they introduced a family program.
“We always talk about the benefits to our campers and how basically these kids get to go on a canoe trip in Algonquin and they climb a fortified rock wall, go horseback riding and try archery and sailing, arts and crafts and pottery and whatever, but it’s also amazing for the able-bodied kids at these host camps,” Morley explained. “They get to see our kids using wheelchairs go canoeing and horseback riding, so it’s kind of a cool set-up and very unique.”
Morley added that other organizations are starting to adopt the same model as camp awakening because it has been so successful.
“We’re very proud of that,” she said. “It was quite progressive in the 1980s when we were founded and I think at that time there was a lot of separation. This idea of being inclusive and bringing kids with physical disabilities into a really traditional Canadian summer camp was really quite out there and progressive and unique.”
This is the fourth year Camp Awakening has partnered with Silver Lakes and Rockford’s for the event.
“The owner of Rockford’s in King City and Silver Lakes Golf Course said to my dad one day that he wanted to do a golf tournament for charity, but wasn’t sure for what, so my dad suggested this,” Morley said. “They love supporting kids and the last three years since 2010 we’ve raised over $17,000, which for a small grassroots charity has a pretty big impact on our operating budget.”
For more information on Camp Awakening, visit www.campawakening.com.