Growing camp healing families, not just patients
by: Josh Pate, NASCAR.COM
Victory Junction Gang Camp nearing second anniversary
MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Kyle and Pattie Petty were a little confused when one of the children at the Victory Junction Gang Camp didn't want to participate in arts and crafts activities. The child, who was at the camp during hemophilia week, said the counselors had lied to him.
A GROWING FAMILY
Nearing the completion of its second year of operation, the Victory Junction Gang Camp is doing more than just show children what they can do and giving them the means to do it.
The camp started as a vision 10 years ago to help ill children ages 7-15 by providing a NASCAR-themed park for them to spend a week with their peers who are going through the same illnesses.
It magnified when Kyle and Pattie's son Adam died in a practice session crash at New Hampshire International Speedway in 2000.
"We looked at this a little differently because we had lost a child," Kyle Petty said. "Tragedy can strike any family at any given time."
The day the camp opened -- June 20, 2004 -- was the day NASCAR's support started flowing in.
"We just had an idea," Petty said. "And when the camp opened, all the goodness and giving and caring that had been bottled up in NASCAR all these years just poured over into Victory Junction."
More than 50 current and former drivers are involved in supporting the Victory Junction Gang Camp.
"I always expected there to be growth," Petty said. "But I didn't expect the growth to be as rapid and the acceptance in the community to be as wide-spread as it is.
"I step back and I can't believe these drivers are helping us do this. I never asked them to help."
"Buddy, you're missing everything," Kyle told the little boy. "There's arts and crafts; you get to make racecars and pick what car you want to make."
The boy's response: "You all lied to me. You said everybody here would have hemophilia, and I'm the only one here with hemophilia. Everybody else is healthy but me."
So Kyle, standing in front of a mirror with the child, asked him to describe the differences between the two of them. Both had eyes. Both had a nose. And both had hair. The only difference was, with hemophilia, people at his school didn't want him to be part of anything for fear of his own safety. But at the camp, all the children were participating in everything -- running, jumping, playing sports and games, getting on stage to sing and dance in front of the entire cohort of campers. They were doing things they'd never done -- or been allowed to do.
That was the whole idea.
"[Kids'] self image is that they're different," Kyle Petty said. "They see themselves as the child with hemophilia or sickle cell. They're not just Tommy or Pattie or Kurt or Kyle."
"A lot of times, these kids who visit during spina bifida, sickle cell or neurology week -- these are really difficult diseases," said Pattie Petty, Kyle's wife and CEO of the Victory Junction Gang Camp. "A lot of times a child never sees another child with the same thing. To look at them, they're very normal. But in their mind's eye, they don't feel normal. It's really exciting to see children come in each week with the same diseases and empower each other."
Nearly every week, there's a similar story coming from the 72-acre, NASCAR-themed camp in Randleman, N.C. A child who has never shot a basketball gets to do it for the first time. A child who has never participated in outdoor activities gets to climb a rope.
"All of a sudden you've got 20 kids with heart disease on the same court playing basketball," Kyle Petty said. "Or you've got 40 kids with asthma or spina bifida or sickle cell. They realize, 'Hey, I can play basketball or bowl or do whatever sport we play.'
"It's very empowering for them because it lets them know, 'I can do this.'"
More and more children are saying that.
Used to, there were anywhere between 60 to 80 children at camp each week, Pattie Petty said. Now attendance is pushing 120 per week. In the fall, winter and spring months, the camp hosts entire families, and the number of families participating has grown from around a dozen to more than 50.
In turn, the number of full-time staff members has grown exponentially. A new administrative building is being sponsored by Wal-Mart to house the offices of 52 employees. Even Pattie Petty's hours have expanded. She said she used to be at the camp a couple of days a week, but now she's there daily, sometimes from 8 a.m. until midnight. And when she's on the road with her husband, she's usually working the phones.
Fortunately for her, this week's race was in nearby Martinsville. It'll be one of the biggest weeks for the camp as it launches it's new, user-friendly Web site to make it easier for donors to give and the public to navigate the information. Additionally, seven modular homes will go up on site to house the swelling group of medical staff members for the summer.
Victory Junction Gang Camp
2006 Schedule
April 7-9 Sickle Cell
April 21-23 Spina Bifida
June 4-9 Cancer
June 11-16 Hemophilia and JRA
June 18-23 Heart, Lung & Kidney
June 28-July 2 Spina Bifida
July 9-14 Burn Survivors & Skin Disease
July 16-21 Sickle Cell
July 26-30 Neurology & Genetic Disorders
Aug. 6-11 Immunology & G.I.
Aug. 13-18 Siblings
"What it's done is it's validated us as a credible place to come," Pattie Petty said. "What has been our struggle is to prove to our families that we offer a medically sound environment."
All medication for campers is provided by the camp at the Body Shop facility. Joining them for treatments, beginning this week, will be the camp's new mascot, a blue horse named Vic.
"He definitely has a disease," Pattie Petty said. "But we don't disclose that, because when you come to Victory Junction, you leave your disease at home.
"Nobody really knows what disease Vic has. Sometimes Vic's in a wheelchair; sometimes Vic's got his crutches; sometimes Vic's in bandages; and sometimes Vic has to have treatments. It doesn't matter what he has."
Just the same, it really doesn't matter what illnesses children at Victory Junction have, either. What does matter is that children enjoy their week at the camp.
Companies like Home Depot are helping to build a wheelchair-accessible tree house, Pattie Petty said. Tony Stewart has donated money to build a 2-acre electronic maze, and golfer Davis Love is providing artificial turf for a miniature golf course. Others, she said, are considering sponsorship for large projects as well.
These projects help in healing the minds of its campers, Pattie Petty said, but surprisingly the camp is also healing families in the process.
The beautiful, natural setting for The Victory Junction Gang Camp is 72 acres of land surrounded by hardwood forest. The camp is located in Randleman, N.C., approximately 15 minutes outside of Greensboro. Nestled in the foothills of the Piedmont Triad, this site offers a rolling terrain with several creeks and woodland streams running through the property.
"I think that's the biggest thing for me, to see that God is directing us in that direction," she said, noting that 52 percent of the families they work with end up in bankruptcy and that 80 percent end in divorce.
"What we found," Kyle Petty said, "is that after that week [at camp] we get phone calls, letters, e-mails that say, 'I took my child to camp, and my child came back as a different child. And I realized how important it is for me to spend time alone or with my spouse or with my other children to be healthy.'"
Even if the camp is one of the child's last enjoyable experiences, the Pettys said parents have never expressed regret about sending their child away for the week full of activities when that week could have been seven more days together as a family.
"The first year of camp, we had four children who passed away two or three months after visiting camp," Kyle Petty said. "And it was hard for us, because if we could give them back that week with their child, then we'd give it back. But the parents say, 'No. That was the best week of their life. We realized we weren't alone.'"
With all the growth -- both in the number of children and in physical attributes of the Victory Junction Gang Camp -- the Pettys aren't alone, either.
"I think the biggest shock -- and most exciting shock -- is that we are finding something that's happening that we didn't expect," Pattie Petty said. "And that's good."
