CONWAY, Ark. (July 23, 2009) – Incoming freshman Anna Lennartson will have a head-start when she arrives on the Hendrix campus this August: she’s already made a new friend. She and senior Alex Sego met this summer at the Children’s Association for Maximum Potential, a summer sleep-away camp in Center Point, Texas, for children with disabilities and special healthcare needs.
This is Sego’s first summer at Camp CAMP, but Lennartson has spent summers at the camp since she was eight years old. A native of Round Rock, Texas, Lennartson was born with the brittle bone disease Osteogenesis Imperfecta. Her parents discovered Camp CAMP after traditional summer camps denied her applications, worried she'd break a bone under their supervision. But Camp CAMP, which maintains a 1:1 camper-to-counselor ratio and an extensive on-site health facility, accepted her.
Lennartson grew to love the camp during the summers she spent there as a child. Since she started high school, she has returned each summer as a volunteer counselor.
“Part of the reason I wanted to come back as a counselor was to allow other kids to have the same good experience I had when I was a camper,” Lennartson said. “My main job is to be their friend and make sure they have fun.”
As a counselor, Lennartson spends every waking moment with her assigned camper: waking her up in the morning, assisting her with the day’s fun activities, and helping her get ready for bed. Depending on the severity of the camper’s disability, Lennartson also helps with healthcare needs.
Sego, who works as an art instructor at the camp, was drawn to it through a web of Hendrix connections. The current camp director, Dr. Brandon Briery, graduated from Hendrix in 1995. A Hendrix staff member who knew Briery passed his contact information to Sego and encouraged her to apply.
“The fact that the director was an alumnus made me look harder at the camp when I was looking for summer plans,” Sego said. The Sardis, Ark., native was originally looking for an internship in Little Rock. “We talked, and he told me about all of the programs at CAMP, and I said ‘When can I come?’”
Lennartson, meanwhile, had no idea the camp director was a Hendrix alum. She found out about Hendrix on her own, through the book Colleges that Change Lives, and was drawn in by its warm character and interesting traditions. When she found out that Sego and Briery had gone to Hendrix, she was shocked.
“We kind of had an 'OMG no way' moment,” Lennartson said. “Alex said, ‘You're going to love it!' But that was about the extent of our first conversation, because I was busy with my camper.”
Both students work long, tiring days at the camp, but they’ve found time to discuss a few details, such as the closet space in Galloway Hall. Lennartson will live there this fall, and Sego lived there as a freshman, too. The two are planning some major bonding time as the summer winds down, especially since Lennartson only knows one other person going to Hendrix.
“I’m not worried about not knowing many people, though,” she said. “Everyone I’ve talked to at Hendrix so far has been super friendly, like Alex.”
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is an undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2009 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.
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