Just about one year ago, historic floods decimated parts of eastern Kentucky. Many people in the region continue to rebuild and recover from the physical and emotional devastation of a major flood.
Camp Noah is a special day camp focused on resiliency and preparedness for children who survived the floods.
Outside, it’s a hot summer day in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. But inside the air-conditioned Floyd County Community Center, it’s comfortable. This is where a group of kids between the ages of 5 and 12 attend Camp Noah. It’s a week-long day camp designed for survivors of disasters like last July’s floods that hit eastern Kentucky. Camp music coordinator Melanie Turner leads some of the children in a song about hope and the future.
Turner is a professional musician. She’s taught children for more than 25 years and said music can be therapeutic.
“Through participating in the arts, especially music, I feel that students can express themselves, can find a way to talk about their feelings and I think music can be very uplifting and healing,” said Turner.
The camp is sponsored by the nonprofit Appalachian Regional Healthcare Foundation for Healthier Communities. The elementary school-age children spend each day in small groups where they participate in various activities.
On this day, a dozen children line up on chairs in front of a small stage for a puppet show about safety. The puppets are animals from Noah's Ark. Cassie Hites, the camp coordinator, gets the campers excited about the puppet show by asking them to make the sound of their favorite animal.
Hites said all of these children are survivors of last July’s horrific flooding in eastern Kentucky.
“And we are building some resiliency skills as well as providing some healing from all the traumas that they had faced from that flooding,” explained Hites.
Eight-year-old Chase Prater lists a few of the activities he likes to do at Camp Noah.
“Paint, play basketball, play frisbee,” said Prater.
He and Ethan Smith use long brushes to dab blue paint on a mural designed by artist Lacy Hale. The 5 feet tall by 10 feet wide piece of art includes images of cardinals, the state flower, and helping hands. Campers, Prater and Smith tell why they like painting the mural.
“Really cool and it’s fun,” said Prater.
What I like is, I like how it’s very artistic,” exclaimed Smith.
Lacy Hale said the themes of the mural are resiliency and sense of place. She supports each child as they take turns painting the piece of art that will be displayed next month at the Celebrate Resilience Event in Wayland.
Hale, who lives in Whitesburg, is also a flood survivor. She understands why painting this mural is helpful to the healing process.
‘I think it’s really meaningful that they can see something come together that they’ve worked on as a team. And just to have some sort of creative, expressive outlet to make this imagery that they know will last and other people will see. They can be proud of it,” said Hale.
In another room, camp counselor Shay Slone talked to children about life after the flood.
Slone encouraged each child to draw a picture of something positive.
As the day goes on two children begin to get a little tired. They wrap up in blankets provided as part of a resiliency care package. Camp counselors stay close by to comfort the children.
Ten of the camp counselors are students from the Carl D. Perkins Job Corp Center in Prestonsburg. Annie Collins the work-based learning coordinator there said having her students working at the camp is valuable.
”Everybody in Eastern Kentucky has a flood story. I’ve got chills now just speaking about it. Some of our students and staff lost everything they had. Places flooded that never flooded before. And so this area has seen a lot of hurt and heartache. So, in order to give back and bring some joy and smiles to these kids that’s why it’s important,” said Collins.
Collins directs all the children to gather in one room where Macy the crisis response dog arrives with her owner Bear Berman.
‘We’re going to hang out with you guys and you can spend as much time as you want loving on Macy. We’ll be here today and tomorrow,” announced Berman.
Berman said the golden retriever is a certified therapy dog with the New Jersey-based non-profit Crisis Response Canines.
“We were welcomed with open arms and immediately the children want to tell you about their dog and their family and we just let them open up,” reported Berman.
As the camp day comes to a close Camp Counselor Kincaid Richards sits near 8-year-old camper Loki Stephens. Loki said, "camp is good".
Loki and the other campers continue petting Macy the therapy dog. They all hope to be back at Camp Noah tomorrow.
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