Last Fall I started a diary series about my adventures going to sleep-away camp in the summer. Rather than dive right into my experiences at the second camp I attended, I want to start the next part of this series with some background. This section will be a three parter introducing the camp and some background on the key people behind the foundation of the camp.
(One word of warning, I may have some of these facts remembered wrong especially the stuff regarding the Newman’s Own company and leading up to the founding of camp as I am relying mostly on second-hand stories I have been told over many years. But be assured the items regarding the camp itself are only things I know to be accurate.)
Let’s head back down the orange swimming hole and find out more about this magical place.
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Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
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The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp opened in 1988 and was founded by the actor Paul Newman and one of his good friends, A. E. Hotchner (Hotch). We’ll talk more about them in future diaries. For this diary, I’ll discuss the camp itself.
This story officially starts a few years before the camp’s opening. In 1982, Newman and his longtime friend and business partner, A. E. Hotchner, began the Newman’s Own company. The company basically started as a way to sell Newman’s personal salad dressing recipes that he was already giving out to friends and neighbors as gifts. The first year the company made $300,000 and Newman decided to “give it all away.” (As of today, the company’s total donations to different charitable organizations has surpassed $400 million.) (To learn about the company and its charitable foundation visit these sites: www.newmansown.com/charity/ & www.newmansownfoaundation.org) With the company’s success growing every year, Newman and Hotch decide to open a camp for critically ill kids in 1986. They buy a swath of unused farmland in Northeastern in a town called Ashford, a few miles south of Sturbridge, MA. Over the next couple of years they would design and build numerous buildings to bring their idea to fruition.
To create the camp, Newman and Hotch decided to get their inspiration from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, a movie Newman starred in with Robert Redford. Butch Cassidy and his gang had a hideout that was literally a hole in the wall making it difficult to find and very well protected from the threat of the authorities. While in the hideout, the gang could let their guard down and be themselves. That would become an important motto for the camp.
Just entering the camp was much like entering a “hole in the wall.” Unless you knew where the entrance was or what to look for, you could easily drive right by the entrance without ever knowing it. The main entrance, on Ashford Center Road, is only identified by a small green and white sign next to a dirt road that leads into the camp (the trees block your view of everything behind them). However, as soon as you turn onto the dirt road, the whole camp begins to unfold. As your drive past Pearson Pond, (named for the camp’s first Medical Director, Dr. Howard Pearson) you come to another “hole in the wall” you must drive through to get towards the main parking lot and onwards to the camp.
The camp was designed in the style of a Wild West town complete with building-lined dusty road, stockades flanking the entrance to the camper cabins and a teepee camping site on a lake. Also built was a full service infirmary that could handle most medical issues needed for any of the campers who would be attending the camp. This would allow kids who typically spent long periods of time in the hospital at home to have a place where they could be kids and still get the medical care they needed at any time.
The general population of kids attending the Hole in the Wall in the early years were kids with or in remission from some form of cancer or had blood disorders such as Hemophilia. Special sessions were set aside for kids with Sickle Cell Anemia as well as kids with Immunology disorders (largely HIV/AIDS). As the years went by, kids with other, usually rare, conditions were able to attend camp. Kids with mitochondrial diseases, lysosomal storage diseases and other rare and typically terminal disorders began to be accepted.
The camp was set up to have up to 120 campers in attendance at any one session. 15 cabins divided into 5 units with each unit having 3 cabins each and each cabin could house 8 campers. 4 staff members (usually two full summer counselors and 2 session volunteers) were assigned to each cabin ensuring there would be no less than a 2:1 ratio of campers to staff. Each unit was given a color. The original 5 colors were Blue, Red, Green, Yellow and White. White was later changed to Purple when someone finally noticed the inherent problem with a White unit during a Sickle Cell Session. I’ll let you figure that one out. Interestingly, the Purple Unit was founded the year I started attending the camp. One of the main features of camp is a large dining hall where all of camp gathers to eat three times a day. This is where you would learn about the day’s events and sing songs and dance after eating to keep your spirits high as you move through the day.
Camp activities were pretty much your typical sleep-away or day camp activities. You have arts & crafts & woodshop. There is a heated swimming pool (necessary especially for the Sickle Cell kids). You could go boating and fishing on the lake (catch and release only). There is a horse barn to go horseback riding. A gym, tennis courts and a field for baseball, soccer, football, etc. An adventure ropes course program which later added a rock climbing wall. A theatre for all those future entertainment award winners. Other activities that have come and gone include a nature shed, creative zone with an emphasis on the written word and computers, camping out and water fights (at least according to the people with whom I have spoken who would know). In their place have come a mini golf area, an archery field and a cooking zone.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention two other hugely important places at The Hole in the Wall. The first is the bonfire amphitheatre. The first night of camp always concludes here (unless it’s raining). At the amphitheatre is a small rock wall with stones from the original Hole in The Wall set up to create a small hole in the wall symbolizing your entrance into the Gang, a special group of people forever expanding and always there to support you. The other key area, situated just behind the amphitheatre, is a memory garden where you can go when times are tough and remember the people who have helped you and support you. These two areas along with the Tower form the shape of a heart symbolizing the power of love the camp provides.
Join me next time when I detail what a typical session at camp is like at least when I was a camper.
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