Camp Hope 2018 wrapped up Saturday, after a week of activities in Barton County. Camp Hope Media Coordinator Barb Keltner, Eudora, reports there were 72 campers who spent the week at Camp Aldrich, and five campers who were there for one day of their choice. All of these children have been diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, but for this week their job was to focus on having fun.
Their safety was a top priority for the 117 volunteers.

“The parents of the Camp Hope campers are always so appreciative for the week of fun and friendships Camp Hope provides to their children and express that to the volunteers often,” Keltner said. “But Therese Leiszler, mother of camper Zach Leiszler, 17 of Clifton, wanted to do something extra special. She gathered photos of Zach’s experience at Camp Hope and had them put on cookies with some sort of ‘edible paper.’ Campers and volunteers were ‘wowed’ by the results at dinner Tuesday night and had trouble picking the one photo cookie they wanted for dessert. (One young camper was SURE the large cookie in the middle was the one he should have and was only moderately calmed when given a nice chunk of it.)”

Keltner provided most of the photos shown here, including one of the cookies and one of a camper getting a “pie” in the face.
“When the youngest Camp Hope campers wanted to play the fun game Pie in the Face, there was one hiccup — the camp kitchen didn’t have any whipped cream to use on the hand. But Camp Hope is nothing if not inventive — they got some of the mashed potatoes left over from dinner, mixed in some gravy, also left over from dinner, and made their own concoction that worked perfect for this game! At first, Jackson Hobbs, 6, from Dodge City, was a little leery of this game. But when he got splat in the face with the potato mixture, he found it actually pretty tasty, and licked the rest off the plastic hand!”