Along the esCarpade route we meet with families who tell us about their Camp Quality journey, and it never fails to remind us of why we do what we do to raise money through esCarpade. One of the parents who addressed our dinner was Rose Claridge, who has sent her speech notes to use – because we couldn’t put it better than this extract from Rose’s speech:
“You know when you hear about a tragedy that has happened to another person, and you think – thank God I’m not that family. We turned into that family to be pitied on the 13th July, 2000. At the beginning of that day, we had 3 little girls under the age of 7, one of whom had a supposed virus and was in hospital. We ended that day with the knowledge that our little four-year-old daughter had leukaemia and was due to start 2½ years of chemotherapy.
“Nothing can prepare you for this journey. Our hearts were broken. I can remember staying up that first night watching Abby, so scared that she would die during the night. Cancer not only robs you of your health, it robs you of laughter and hope. It takes away your smile.
“I can still remember that first time that I met one of the Camp Quality people. They smiled and treated us like a normal mum and daughter. I clearly remember the smile. True smiles are a rarity in a children’s cancer ward. Abby was so excited when she would hear from a Camp Quality person, get a letter in the mail or a phone call. She knew from the badges and the T-shirts that the Camp Quality people wore, that there would be smiles.
“Abby started to really look forward to Camp Quality. From the other children she would hear about camps, weekends and lots of wonderful experiences that other kids were having. As a motivation to go, Abby decided to try to get as healthy as she could. She was 5 years old, bald and weighed 11 kg. It must have seemed a very tragic group that got on the bus to that camp that day – but what people didn’t see was the massive smiles on the children’s faces, the hope.
“Camp Quality invited us to many adventures – weekends away, junior and senior camps, ski camps and family camps. There was always lots of laughter, lots of fun things to do and lots of talking. But the biggest thing that CQ gave to my family was hope. They allowed us time to enjoy our family by doing normal things, like learning to fish, surf or ski. When Abby started school, she was still bald, and other children shunned her, through fear. Camp Quality supplied their amazing puppets – Dean and Kylie – to talk to the children and answer their questions.
“People often say we should fundraise for a cure. I believe that we do need to fundraise for a cure, but I also think that we need to fundraise so that children who are undergoing this massive life-threatening challenge learn to smile, learn to hope and learn to live.
“Thank you Camp Quality for teaching my children how to laugh again.”
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