After a five-year period as a day camp due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita’s Ministry With Persons With Disabilities (MPD) has returned its Holy Family Camp to an overnight format. The event, which has been part of the diocese since 1990, was held July 20-23 at Wheat State Retreat Center between Andover and Augusta.

Jessica Lopez, MPD Director, said, “Our diocese has been doing this since 1990, and we lost part of it during Covid, but it is beautiful that Bishop Kemme has supported getting it back to an overnight format. Few dioceses have anything like our MPD, so they also do not have camps like this.”

This year’s camp hosted 64 campers aged 14 to 67 and 60 volunteers known as “buddies.” Activities included a talent show, trivia competition, carnival, dance, Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and confession. According to Lopez: “It is not necessary to be Catholic to join the camp, and several of our campers are not, but we ask them to respect our traditions. To my knowledge, very few camps offer Mass, adoration, and a reconciliation service. Many of these individuals are nonverbal, but the priests in our diocese are fabulous, and do what they can for all our friends. We have been able to bring some into the faith because they experience God during camp. I can’t explain it, but it’s wonderful.”

Lopez noted that both campers and volunteers benefit from the experience: “The volunteers make lifelong friends and memories,” she said. “It has become a beautiful community. Buddies experience a beautiful way to get out of themselves and be more like Christ. They serve the campers, but they also get to bond with each other as they talk about their days and explore different strategies for handling situations. It’s beautiful.”

Clarissa Gantt from Wichita’s Church of the Blessed Sacrament served as a buddy for her second year: “I didn’t expect the compassion and kindness that is just in the atmosphere,” she said. “My favorite thing is the joy that camp seems to bring everybody especially the campers.” Josie Nowak of St. Anthony Parish in Wichita was paired with Gantt this year; when asked about her favorite part of camp she replied after some thought: “the buddies.”

Lopez explained that bringing back overnight stays allowed for more flexible scheduling and deeper connections among participants: “Instead of looking at it from the perspective of things we have to do in six hours we can extend the time slots and run it like a true camp with downtime and bigger events,” she said.

She added that medical support at Holy Family Camp is robust thanks to volunteer nursing staff who stay throughout camp sessions—this year equipped with an AED defibrillator funded by local medical practices—and that financial support from organizations such as the Special Needs Foundation ensures no camper is turned away due to inability to pay.

“This is my first year but I have a lot of friends who have been buddies who told me it would be a lot of fun,” said Ella Troung from St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Wichita.

The diocese plans eventually to return Holy Family Camp fully back to its original seven-day length once facilities become available.