Heart Heroes Camp: “Are we there yet?!”
Emerging Leaders in Health Promotion grant program
This project was renamed from Camp Oak. The original grant was received in 2015/16. Learn more here
Emerging Leaders in Health Promotion project was a leap of faith.
You know you have a good thing going when you can’t wipe the grins off the children’s faces and you hear comments like, “For a five-star rating, I’d give this camp at least a 12!”
Heart Heroes Camp, held last August 4-7 at Camp Yowochas near Wabamun Lake, was just that awesome.
Originally called “Camp Oak (One-of-a-Kind)” and subsequently re-named Heart Heroes Camp, this Emerging Leaders in Health Promotion grant project (2016-17 stream) was developed by Dr. Devin Chetan, a third-year pediatric resident at the University of Alberta.
Seventeen children (ages eight to 14) with congenital heart disease gathered at Heart Heroes Camp to get dirty hands and scraped knees as they participated in typical summer camp shenanigans: arts and crafts, water fights, boating and zip-lining. But that’s where the “typical” ends. For the campers and their parents, Heart Heroes Camp was a first.
“It’s not an easy thing for us, as parents of a medically complex child, to pass over the health and safety of our children to complete strangers. In fact, I never do. Correction: I never have – ever – until now,” says mom Shannon Moroz.
