Photo by Remington Whitcomb Camp Onyahsa Camp Director Jon O’Brian is pictured with campers outside the boating and canoeing station during opening week of the camp season.

DEWITVILLE — To better serve local children with chronic illness, Camp Onyahsa will host a week of free camp for children with Type-1 Diabetes beginning Sunday.

This year’s camp, entitled Yowidica, or Youth With Diabetes Camp, is a continuation of a pilot camp from last year. The previous Yowidica camp of nine campers proved to be very successful, and with financial help from Univera Healthcare and proceeds from the YMCA’s Big Fish Triathlon fundraiser, the camp will continue this year and the next three years.

Jon O’Brian, camp director, confirmed there are 16 campers with Type-1 Diabetes already enrolled for Yowidica, but there is still room for more. Any child age 7-13 living in Western New York qualifies for the free week of camp.

Yowidica is integrated with the regularly scheduled week of camp at Onyahsa, giving campers with Type-1 Diabetes the opportunity to build friendships with dozens of other campers. However, accommodations and arrangements will be made to ensure the safety and health of all Yowidica campers.

“This is the first week without school in New York,” O’Brian said. “We’re going to have a total of 65 campers, up to 16 with Type-1 Diabetes, in a hybrid program. All campers will participate in the same activities.”

Some of those activities will include: canoeing, kayaking, sailing, instructional and recreational swimming, arts and crafts, challenge course, nature instruction, sports, and many choice activities, as well as traditional evening programs, like campfires and skit night.

“Our aim is to help children who have Type-1 to better self-manage their condition,” O’Brian said. “At the same time, though, it’s educational for the youth who do not have Diabetes to learn that this is a manageable, non-contagious condition, and that a person with Diabetes can participate in all the same activities that anyone else can.”

To accommodate the Yowidica campers, Onyahsa will have its regularly staffed RN available, as well as two additional RNs, two medical students, medical director and Endocrinologist Kayce Berke-Sol and two camp counselors with Type-1 Diabetes.

Both counselors with Type-1 have agreed to volunteer their time for the entire week, as they understand how important it is for young children with their disease to see that one can thrive in life even with a chronic illness. All Yowidica campers will reside in a cabin with the counselor of their corresponding gender.

“We want to facilitate peer-to-peer or near peer mentoring,” O’Brian said. “Perhaps a young child that has been recently diagnosed will have a friend in the cabin a few years older that has dealt with this condition for a while. Bonding between kids with the same condition is very important. But at the same time, we still function as one camp, we still eat as a family, and beyond monitoring a little more closely how many carbohydrates the (Yowidica) campers are consuming, everyone will be doing the exact same things.”

O’Brian went on to speak about how the Yowidica program is not only a great opportunity for children with Type-1 Diabetes, but also the families of those children. For many parents of children with Type-1 Diabetes, caring for a child with a chronic illness can be both physically and emotionally consuming. Knowing that Onyahsa has taken every precaution through the Yowidica program can allow a respite from their obligation to their child.

“Our program might be unique because our camp … is an integrated program,” O’Brian said. “Two friends, one with Diabetes and one without, can come to camp during the same week. But also, what we have found is that some parents have been so dedicated to their child’s wellbeing that they have never had more than a day off from parental duties. Here, the child can go to camp for a week and the parents can know that everything is alright.”

Onyahsa is still accepting campers for the Yowidica program. Any child interested in attending can still sign up by contacting Camp Onyahsa’s Jamestown office at 664-2802 ext. 238. More information on Onyahsa can be found at www.onyahsa.org.