thank you Jess.

I got this message from my dear friend Jessica. She is writing to the JCC (Jewish Community Center) to convince them that pulling the camp for special needs children, due to lack of funding, would be a huge mistake. Keep in mind, she does not have kids with special needs. She is simply an angel to those of us who do.

Please help. If you live in Columbus, or even if you don't, reach out to the JCC in Bexley and help. I can also connect you directly with Jessica.

Perhaps if we all had a little fire in our bellies, big things would happen.

Here is the letter:

I left our meeting yesterday with a fire in my belly. This is not uncommon for me. I was not blessed with the gift of quiet or realism. Years of experience should have taught me otherwise, but unfortunately I remain an optimist. Injustice, however big or small is hard for me to swallow.

With that said I am very aware of the economic situation in our county, in our city and at the JCC. I understand full well that the JCC is at the end of the day a business who has to be able to make ends meet just like the rest of us.

And yet we are faced with a crisis of epic proportion. We were informed last night that Camp Arye lost $75,000 in United Way funding. There is no denying that this is significant, but it is by no means insurmountable. We should be looking at this, not as a challenge but as an opportunity. An opportunity to inform our community about this amazing Camp - it's history, it's mission, the lives it touches and most of all it's uniqueness. An opportunity to allow people to become involved in bigger than they are. Something that impacts the life of a child.

There were many fantastic suggestions made at last night's committee meeting and there were less than 20 people in attendance and the ideas all took less than 5 minutes. Imagine what we could come up with if we really took the time really sought out the right resources.

I am suggesting that we CAN NOT DO NOTHING. Think about how many times in history people have chosen the path of least resistance and how deep the regret now runs.

There is clearly the need for both short and long term plans. I understand that even with all of our best effort we might not succeed. But we will know we fought the good fight.

In the short term we need to come up with $75,000 between now and the end of 2009 to allow parents to register their children for Camp Arye early in 2010 as has been the practice. It is clear that most of the non-profit and federally funded programs are tapped out. That is why we need to turn to our members, our community etc. and make the ask of private funds. The idea suggested last night to "sponsor a child" was an inspired one. One that would allow donations of all levels and creates a potentially ongoing source of funding.

If we can raise the $$'s needed to keep the program running for 2010. We buy ourselves 18 months to seek and apply for funding from a wealth of other agencies for 2011. One of the parents suggested that we might have more success if we broke down the needs of our camp attendees and sought funding by type of disability - i.e. funding agencies involved with Autism, Down's Syndrome, MMRD etc.

Clearly we would need a well defined plan, one that while aspirational, was grounded in reality. I am willing to work with other of the development of such a plan. However, there seems to be a deeper issue. It became clear at last night's meeting that maybe the JCC did not to want to ask it's members for support. That it might just be easier to reduce the camp to members only. Is that really our way? Is that really what we want this incredible community of families and children to take away from this - that we did not even try, that we walked away from 25 years of making a difference? As Jav Ruderman says (News Jersey Jewish Standard) "Special-needs children are our children. There is hardly a family that doesn’t have or know a special-needs child, grandchild, niece, nephew, cousin, or neighbor’s or friend’s child. Statistics confirm that one in every 100 children born in the United States has autism. Currently, 14 percent of the children in America are defined as special-needs children. As Jews, we have the obligation to care for all the children in our community."

One of my dearest friends has a child with special needs. He was born at 26 weeks gestation and on that day she became an advocate. And every day since she has had to fight for all of rights and services we take for granted for our typical children. She fights with the public schools, with local, state and federal agencies and with herself every day. She has a strength that is tested again and again and a resolve that is unwavering. But she is not a saint. She is a mom. She does what all of us would do in her shoes. Isn't it our duty to make day camp one less thing to fight for. She once shared this story with me and for me it has made all of the difference. I was landed in Italy twice. But I could have just as easily landed in Holland. And if I had, I'd want to know that Holland had amazing camps too.

When you are going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, The Michelangelo David, the Gondola's in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland". "Holland?" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy". But there has been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and begin to notice that Holland has windmills. Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will always say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned". And the pain of that will never, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

The note has become long so I want to close with this - I clearly feel very passionate about this and am willing to devote the necessary time and energy. But my question is can we? Will the committee and the JCC board allow us to present a short and long term plan to keep Camp Arye as it was intended to be? This morning another dear friend listened to me thinking out loud about this and her response was immediate - "If I got a letter about this, I'd donate in a heartbeat and if it was a personal one I'd probably double it and if it was done in person maybe 4 times that." This reminded me that it is not just the Arye campers that benefit from this program. All of our children learn about differences and humanity and humility from the gentle immersion the get by having the Arye Campers in their midst I realize that not everyone will respond as such, but if we let the community know about this, many, many will.

Thanks,
Jessica Kahan