Learn more or how to help at www.blueskiesministries.org.
With all of the violence, meanness and misery in our world, I am blown away by the charity, kindness and love found in almost every little town and big city in America.
Most of this good work is done “under the radar” because people do it solely to help other human beings and not for fame or credit.
A perfect example is the Yarbrough family of Cumming – Wendy and daughters, Haley, 15, and Shelby, 11. Together they dedicate part of their summer vacation to a place called Camp Blue Skies. The camp, located in Port St. Joe, Fla. was founded in 2010 and serves families who have a child with cancer. It provides a much needed, no-cost respite and as the organization likes to say, it is all about “helping sick children laugh and play again.”
That’s where Wendy, Haley and Shelby come in. As volunteers they are preparing for their third trip in May to the camp where they relieve families of daily chores allowing guest families, as they are called to just relax. The volunteers, who actually pay to participate, are assigned a family for the week. Volunteers do laundry, help prepare meals, clean rooms, baby sit and help to plan and execute activities. Families with a really sick child don’t have these burdens lifted very often, if ever.
In fact, for many of the 13 families who attend one of the eight week-long camps each year, affording a vacation is out of reach. With the cost of caring for a child with cancer, scraping together vacation money is not a high priority.
Thanks to Camp Blue Skies Ministries, the guest families enjoy beautiful accommodations complete with a swimming pool and a beach on the Gulf of Mexico. It also helps to re-engage sisters, brothers, moms and dads. The consuming task of caring for an ill child can often make siblings feel left out. Activities at the camp are aimed at fixing that and making sure mom and dad get to be with all their kids.
The activities for camp visitors are like those at five star resorts: horseback riding on the beach, luaus and deep sea fishing.
“At first we weren’t sure we could do it, because it might be too emotional,” said Wendy.
Now, what she describes as “good for the heart work” is both spiritual and life changing.
“You think your doing something for them, but they give your much more in return,” she said.
Haley and Shelby, like their mom, say it’s a special place where they’ve made lifelong friends and according to Haley it makes “your own troubles seem small.”
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