GOOD WORKS ENCORE
‘Laugh, play, heal and grow’
Camp builds bonds, esteem for young burn survivors LISA MACKINDER
Courtesy
by
M
ike Longenecker, director of the Great Lakes Burn Camp (GLBC) and retired city of Jackson firefighter, has a standing appointment each August for a manicure at a special salon. “You have to set up an appointment and then you pay them in candy,” Longenecker says, chuckling, while describing a salon the youngest girls at camp opened to offer nail, hair and makeup services. “The girls are funny how seriously they take it. It’s a riot.” Having a riot is the point. GLBC, to be held Aug. 5-10 at Pretty Lake Camp in Mattawan, is an annual camp that offers burn survivors ages 6-17 a chance to “laugh, play, heal and grow” — four words that Longenecker says make up the camp’s positive motto. 16 | ENCORE JULY 2018
“We want the kids to come and just laugh, play, heal and grow, and it happens a lot,” he says. “When we have kids come back to camp (every year), I think that shows we’re doing something right.”
The camp’s origins GLBC held its inaugural camp in August 1995 after Chris Klavon, a friend of Longenecker’s and other Jackson and Ann Arbor firefighters, was inspired to start one after volunteering as a counselor at a burn camp in Minnesota in 1994. The year before, Klavon and his family were on their way to a Memorial Day parade, Longenecker explains, when a drunk driver struck their vehicle. Klavon was burned on 75 percent of his body.
This page: Campers enjoy such activities as swimming and crafts. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: A camp volunteer gets a makeup application by a young camper; campers enjoy a game of baseball; a camper rides in a fire truck during the parade to the camp in Mattawan. Photos courtesy of Great Lakes Burn Camp.