RANDOLPH COUNTY, North Carolina — From the painful loss of a son came a special gift for others.
NASCAR driver Kyle Petty and his wife Patti built a special camp in Randolph County in honor of their son Adam, who died in a racing accident six years ago.
The camp is called Victory Junction Gang Camp and serves children with serious illnesses and disabilities. This week, patients at UNC Hospitals’ Jaycee Burn Center are at camp enjoying what could be described as the Disneyland of all summer camps.
With its colorful buildings and NASCAR theme, new campers’ first reaction usually resembles that of Fayetteville’s Rachel Bryant.
“I was like, ‘Woah!’” Bryant said.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Dylan Howard, of Burlington. “There are a lot of things you can do here. It’s a lot of fun.”
There’s the ropes course, swimming, fishing, horseback riding and a loud, noisy dining room. While they eat, teams of campers compete with complex team chants and chants. At the end of the meal, the dance floor fills up.
For 25 years, the Jaycee Burn Center at UNC has provided a summer camp experience to youth with burns through Camp Celebrate. For two years, they have been coming to the Petty family camp.
Different weeks of the camp are for children with sickle cell disease, cancer or other serious health conditions. All of this is funded and supported by corporate and private donations so that children and their families never have to pay a dime.
Goody’s Body Shop is their hospital if they need it.
Inside, the treatment rooms resemble camp cabins. It was designed without the clinical look found in most medical settings.
“Because most of these kids have been in medical treatment for extended periods of time, it’s a camp, and so their time here, we want it to be a camp,” said Brad Chase, the camp’s medical assistant.
Some burn survivors have never been to a camp. Their scars can limit mobility and large skin grafts can make it difficult for the body to sweat and regulate body heat.
Then there’s the stigma that many burn survivors feel when other children focus more on their condition than their personality.
Bryant, for example, severely burned her arm in a domestic accident when she was 1 year old. For her, it’s the other campers that make this week special.
“Every time I’m at school, everyone asks me, ‘What happened to your arm?'” she said. “I’m like, ‘I burned myself.’ And like here, most people experienced the same thing. It’s just different.”
It costs about $2,500 to send a child to Victory Junction Gang Camp. Members of the camp’s medical staff often donate their time and much of the medical equipment is also donated.
