Giving Back – Victory Junction Gang Camp
A couple weeks ago my wife and I had the honor of visiting the Victory Junction Gang Camp and making an Adobe software donation. The Victory Junction Gang Camp was founded by Kyle and Pattie Petty, in honor of their son Adam, to provide life changing camping experiences to kids with chronic medical conditions or serious illness. The VJGC is a non-profit organization and relies on the generous donations of individuals and organizations. The have a full 24 hr production studio on-site that captures photos and videos of the campers and their experiences all through the week and then provides them to the campers and the parents as they depart. I would like to share our experience and our tour with Pronto, the camp director, as the camp is truly an engineering feat in itself.
Adobe is a very giving company and strongly encourages philanthropy and community involvement from its employees each year. Each year an Adobe employee can purchase a limited number of software licenses and my wife and I typically donate them to charitable organizations. When I contacted Abby the In-kind coordinator she asked us if we would like to visit some time. My wife and I jumped at the opportunity, traded in some miles for plane tickets, and we were off to North Carolina to visit the camp and it is a trip we will not soon forget.
As we arrived at the entrance and we waited at the camp entrance to meet with our host, we chatted with the lady managing the gift shop. She asked who we were there to meet and we informed her that we were there to meet with Pronto the camp director. Then she informed us that we were in for a treat and that Pronto does not lack any energy. From the moment you first meet Pronto you are almost consumed with his energy and he quickly brings a smile to your face. Each weekend or week they host a certain type of medical condition and our weekend that we visited it was Neurology week. My wife works in Neurology and we almost immediately asked about Neurology week and he immediately corrected us and raised his voice said “it is not Neurology week it is Mardi Gras weekend and the theme is Hey Mister, Throw Me Some Beads!” while he was just grinning from ear to ear. He said what is important is from the moment the campers check in that they try and separate them from all the worries and their medical conditions that they deal with on a daily basis. Pronto said if a normal child visited a camp they would not be labeled and neither would their campers. We loaded up in the golf cart and away we went.
The camp is based on a Nascar theme as the Petty’s are a Nascar family. For each activity that a camper can enjoy, the activity has been engineered so that every kid can participate not matter their physical limitations. As we entered the camp you drive down through a tunnel which is similar to most Nascar track as you enter the infield. When you come out of the tunnel the camp is in full view. The first building you notice right away is the building that is in the shape of a car. It is an architectural feat in itself. Pronto explained to us that Pattie had envisioned this building long before pencil was put to the paper. As she began to describe it to architects, several responses came back as it could not be done. Pronto told us that the one thing you don’t want to tell a Petty is that it can’t be done. Hence as you can see in the picture of my wife and me below is that the building was in fact was built as she first envisioned.
What truly inspired me about the entire camp is that for every activity a camper can enjoy it is engineered to accommodate every camper. Take the pool for example. A camper that is in a wheel chair can be accommodated in a plastic wheel chair where they can roll themselves into the pool and achieve buoyancy. Also for campers that have trouble maintaining their body temperature, they built a room right off the pool so that the camper can quickly bring their body temperature back up and rejoin the activities. The same consideration was taken for each facility. The movie theatre had a large open area in the middle with no seats. When you think about the movie theatres we go to today we see the accessibility off to one side or the other. At Victory Junction Gang Camp it is front and center so that everyone can have the same experience. The onsite clinic is called the body shop. As with everything else it is first class. Almost every procedure that a camper would need they are able to accommodate on-site. What is unique about the body shop is it looks exactly like every other facility on campus. Even the rooms in the clinic are the exact same as where the campers stay during the week, down to the colors. This way if a camper has to stay in the clinic, they have the same experience they would in their own room. They leave no stone unturned when it comes to accessibility for the campers as each camper can have the same experience as others.
In the end the Victory Junction Gang Camp was thanking us extensively for the software donation. Really though we should be thanking them for all that they do and the experience they give each individual camper. The hard truth is that the photography and video that occurs during the week may be capturing very special moments that the kids may never experience again. All we can do is make sure they have the best software available to produce whatever they wish. As we left the camp we were grinning from ear to ear, and I just could not quit thinking about all the architecture and engineering that was put into the camp to give each camper an unbelievable experience. It was an experience that we will soon not forget.
Jonathan