New York Newsday - LI Life

WHEATLEY HEIGHTS
A day camp for healing
Sunrise helps kids with cancer enjoy the summer and feel they're not alone
BY CHRISTINE SHOW
Newsday Staff Writer

July 30, 2006

J'hyla Phillip sat on a red bench, nestled under tall trees, her legs dangling as she ate a sandwich and chatted with friends at Sunrise Day Camp.

For 8-year-old J'hyla, the camp is a break from the harsh realities that have marked her life since September, when she was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a form of brain cancer. Since then, she has been receiving and recovering from chemotherapy at Schneider Children's Hospital in New Hyde Park. Between treatments, when she's feeling well enough, J'hyla enters a world of fun and play at Sunrise, a new day camp in Wheatley Heights for children with cancer and their siblings. At the moment, Sunrise serves 90 kids from the tristate area.

"I really like it," J'hyla said on a recent morning, pausing to think about her favorite activities, a list as endless as her excitement. "I like the pool, the misting tent, the clubhouse."

At Sunrise, J'hyla, of Jamaica, Queens, can wear with ease her black bandana with white smiley faces knowing she is not alone. There are other kids at Sunrise who also want to cover lost hair, surgical scars or shunts.

Bonding and care

"It was a positive," said J'hyla's mom, Judy Sargent, "to have her going to camp with children who are sick like her."

Sunrise offers bus transportation to and from four hospitals - Schneider, Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan and The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.

"I think it's good for her to bond with children and take the bus," Sargent said. "At work, I don't have to worry."

Sunrise tries to minimize worrying for the campers, too.

"Our goal is to help them have fun," said camp director Michele Vernon. "We want to recraft and redraft their memories of childhood."

Campers ranging in age from 3 1/2 to 17 enjoy activities from swimming to dance to mini-golf - spread across 40 acres. Unlike a regular camp, however, Sunrise has a soap-and-sink station for campers by each recreational area. Contact sports are not allowed, and the camp has a gazebo where campers can get away for some personal quiet time.

"We want to have a protected, safe, happy environment where medical needs are taken care of," Vernon said.

Sunrise executive director Arnie Preminger said the day camp is the first of its kind on the East Coast. Preminger, executive vice president of the Barry and Florence Friedberg Jewish Community Center, which runs seven other camps around Long Island, created Sunrise when he noticed a lack of daily summer activities for children with cancer.

Day camp allows parents to reach children having medical difficulties more quickly than if their children were at a far-off sleepaway camp, and allows children to have fun in the midst of treatment.

"I started looking at day camps, and I didn't find any," Preminger said. "All of the camps - there's about 60 to 100 - were sleepaways."

The 40-member staff - many volunteers, all wearing head coverings as a symbol of solidarity - were trained to deal with the physical and emotional effects of cancer.

Giving back

Emily Harris knows the importance of an understanding staff. Harris, 17, of West Hempstead, attended a sleepaway camp for children with cancer after being diagnosed at age 5 with neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue or the spinal cord.

Now cancer-free, Harris joined the Sunrise staff as a junior counselor.

"It sounded really good; I could give back," she said. "It's a really good opportunity to help kids just like me."

Campers seem to sense that in Harris. During one recent swim time, Harris splashed in the pool with Samantha and Amanda Perrone of Deer Park.

"This is a great camp," said Samantha, 8, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age 2 1/2.

Although her sister, Amanda, 5, doesn't have cancer, Sunrise welcomes siblings because they, too, often feel the emotional devastation of cancer.

"When I'm swimming, I get to see her, when I'm at lunch I get to see her," Amanda said of Samantha. "I do fun things. I go in the clubhouse, or sometimes I just talk to the counselors."

Prior to signing up, the girls' mother, Karen, was leery.

"At first, I almost threw the literature out because all the camps I heard of before were all sleepaway camps, and we were not ready," she said. "It piqued my interest. It's the first day camp."

The fact that the camp was free also intrigued Perrone, who struggles to pay high hospital bills. Samantha's three years of treatment cost the family $65,000 out of pocket.

"It's hard to say to a kid because [we] paid the hospital, you can't go to camp," she said. "This camp is a lifesaver."

Tony Sahadeo of Far Rockaway has seen the difference the camp has made in the day-to-day life of his son Suraj, 7, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in March.

"We need an organization like this to show other kids you're not alone, and there's help out there," Tony said.

That was evident as J'hyla joined a line of campers giggling as they threw rubber chickens in a bucket as part of the camp's Wacky 'n' Wild Challenge. Others tossed pies in counselors' faces.

"The bottom line is everybody is not equipped to help with sick children," said Sargent, J'hyla's mother. "It's a comfort that they're willing to deal with it and can deal with it."