By June Mathews
Adream came true in 1990 for Ben and Luanne Russell with the dedication of Children’s Harbor. They had long hoped to provide a place of respite at no cost for seriously ill children and their families, and a picturesque spot on the shores of Lake Martin was the perfect setting.
Three-and-a-half decades later, hundreds of families have benefited from the support and care Children’s Harbor provides, not only at Lake Martin, but at its sister facility, The Harbor Family Center at Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham.
As Children’s Harbor marks its milestone 35th year in operation, the Lake Martin facility also will be celebrating a milestone of a different kind: This is its first year as an American Camp Association-accredited camp.
“Becoming an ACA-accredited program proves Children’s Harbor’s commitment to providing the absolute best and safest camp experience to the children and families we serve,” said Vicki Tuggle, chief operating officer for Children’s Harbor. “The ACA accreditation is completely voluntary. We didn’t have to do it, but it shows a level of commitment to quality programming.”
The only national accrediting body for camps focused on health, safety and risk management, ACA serves as a community for camp professionals who share their knowledge and experience with one another in the interest of ensuring the quality of camp programs. Accreditation is administered through a peer review process.
The entire accreditation process, Tuggle said, took just more than a year.
“We didn’t think we were ready for it, but ACA encouraged us to go ahead and try,” she said. “So we started working on it in the fall of 2022, and we were notified that we made it in the fall of 2023. We passed with flying colors, so we’re excited about that.”
ACA accreditation, however, isn’t just a one-time thing. Accreditation is maintained through visits by peer reviewers every three years and annual reports submitted by the camp to confirm that they continue to abide by ACA standards. But the benefits of accreditation are more than just a designation.
“It’s no secret that we live in a litigious society, and liability insurance is very expensive,” said Tuggle. “Our insurance carriers were quite pleased with the improvements we made going through the ACA accreditation process, and it actually gave us a bit of a discount on our liability insurance. That’s just more money we can allocate to spending on the families.”
The accreditation also gives the Children’s Harbor staff greater confidence in providing the safest and most exceptional experiences for the Children’s Harbor Mission and community partners, including Smile-A-Mile, Camp Bridges, Magic Moments and several others.
“We act as the host for these groups,” said Tuggle. “They bring their different populations of medically fragile children to Children’s Harbor for their camps, and we can take care of a lot of things on the campus while they concentrate on being with their kids and families, depending on what kind of camp they want to do.”
Family Retreats, Too
Children’s Harbor has its own camp program, too.
“We realized during COVID that there are a lot of populations that aren’t currently being served,” Tuggle said. “Rare disease is a good example. There are so many of them that you’re not going to find a camp for certain illnesses or diagnoses. So what we’ve done is created something we call Harbor Family Retreats.”
Families dealing with a mix of lifelong diagnoses are invited to come to Children’s Harbor to relax, enjoy some fun activities and spend some time with other people in situations similar to theirs. Those invited may include single-parent families, grandparents raising their grandchildren, or other non-traditional family units. In some cases, even foster families have come.
“Families look quite different than they used to,” said Tuggle. “But we don’t care who it is. We’re just looking for whoever is a caregiver for this child and to do our best to make sure nobody feels left out or alone. There’s a sense of community when these families come together, and a lot of friends are made. The family retreats have been very popular.”
But many of the family members find it hard to believe that the retreats are free. Some, in fact, want to know “the catch,” and, like one 8-year-old sibling of one of the patients, they’ll ask outright, “Why do you do this for free?”
For Tuggle, the answer is simple: “Because we care about you.”
Visit Children’s Harbor online at childrensharbor.com.
