Guest Blogger of the week!!!

This week I was honored to be the guest blogger of the week for Flying Horse Farms. I know I have already blogged once on here regarding my experience there but here is the new one, enjoy :) Volunteering at camp: How to describe the indescribable When anyone asks me about Flying Horse Farms and the experience I had at camp, I can only say one thing: it’s indescribable. I knew I was going to have a great experience when I drove through the gates this summer for a hematology/oncology week. But I couldn’t have imagined everything I felt and still feel today about camp. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about camp and all the amazing people I met there: from the medical staff to the grounds crew, the Alcoa fellows, the volunteers, and definitely to the children. Beyond a doubt, I was changed forever. And one story in particular showed me why this place is so magical. For the first half of the week, one of the younger boy campers struggled with homesickness. Even though I was an activities counselor, not one of his cabin counselors, the cabin adopted me early on. So I spent a lot of time with them and noticed that whenever he was kept busy he was always having fun. So his counselors and I did our best to get his mind away from being at home and keep him occupied so he would have a great time. His homesickness started to fade around day three and he started having a noticeably better time. It was amazing to see his transformation from a camper struggling and wanting to leave to one who began volunteering for games and wanted to participate. At the last campfire of the week, we all wrote wishes on our wish sticks. I wished for more times like this (the ones that most definitely make us feel human). The formerly homesick boy sat next to me and scribbled on his stick. When he finished, he showed me what he’d written. It said: “for all the kids to get better.” While you’re at Flying Horse Farms you sometimes forget the challenges these campers face in their daily lives. After all, they look like any other child walking down the street. So when I read his wish stick it struck me: camp actually gave these kids a week of freedom. Freedom from the hospital, the doctors, the “how are you feeling” questions, things that I don’t always think about because I don’t experience them on a daily basis. Through Flying Horse Farms we let kids have fun, be creative, dream, imagine, and hope. But most important of all, we let them be kids. Guest Blogger Amanda Ghiloni is a program volunteer at Flying Horse Farms.