Hope for the children

A camping experience for kids whose lives have been influenced by crime gives them hope

By Jim Hart

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 28, 2010, Updated Jul 28, 2010

Contributed art

Three campers enjoy the daily swimming/water play time in the nearby lake during a weeklong outdoor experience at Camp Hope recently.

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Julie and Byron Wittenborn, who live between Boring and Damascus, have had a labor of love for the past 12 years.

They’ve volunteered to offer some children a summer camp experience that could help them learn to live a more normal life.

Statistically, these children are at risk because all of them have at least one parent behind bars.

In 1999, Julie joined the staff at Camp Hope, founded in 1996 by Elmer and Quilla Whiten, who now are both deceased.

Julie and Byron assumed the executive director roles in 2005, and the camp has been growing in size and popularity since then.

“I had been an outdoor school counselor,” Julie said, “and I absolutely loved the camp atmosphere. And when I found out that this camp helped kids with parents in prison, I really wanted to help. Once I had met the kids, I couldn’t turn my back on them. Their situations just tug on your heart, and you can’t walk away.”

Last year, 53 children between the ages of 9 and 12 enjoyed a week at Camp Tapawingo in Falls City. They were served and supervised by a staff of about 35 adult and older-youth role models, including nurses, office support staff and program directors.

“This camp is something we are very passionate about,” Julie said. “But it is a hard week for us. At the end of the week, everyone is exhausted. The challenges we experience are incredible.”

Byron says the campers are much like a slice of life in any large community, even though they are all from small towns east of Portland.

“We have a wide range of kids (personality, interest, background and family support),” Byron said. “Some are only a couple of steps away from walking down the wrong path.”

With the type of mentoring that some have had, it’s difficult to avoid repeating the cycle.

“Kids of incarcerated parents are statistically much more likely to be incarcerated,” Julie said. “It’s a pattern that’s hard to break, and they come out with a negative view of police.”

Camp Hope tries to show the kids that law officers are just regular people wearing a uniform and enforcing the laws of the community.

The camp’s chaplain, dressed the same as the rest of the camp’s leaders, interacts with the children throughout the week and gains their trust. At the last session, he comes dressed in the uniform he wears outside of camp — as a reserve deputy sheriff and chaplain for other sheriff’s deputies.

“They get to know him as a person,” Julie said, “He comes down to their level (because a member of his family was incarcerated), and they are shocked when they see him with a badge and gun and uniform.”

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