Center for Courageous Kids welcomes 40,000th camper

SCOTTSVILLE, Ky. (WBKO) - The Center for Courageous Kids in Scottsville hit a major milestone Friday night, welcoming their 40,000th camper, Anna Miler.

Staff members and counselors waited outside the center’s gates with signs as Anna and her mother, Lindsey Miller-Voss pulled up for the camp’s family weekend.

“Every time I go through the gates of CCK, I always feel this surge of excitement,” Anna said, “But seeing all these people welcoming me and excited for me, just as much as I’m excited to see them. It warms my heart, and it’s made me even more pumped up for this weekend.”

The center is a non-profit camping facility that hosts kids with illnesses and disabilities and their families free of charge. They provide the kids with all different kinds of activities from horseback riding and painting to wood shop, music, and a large-scale event called messy games.

“It’s this big food fight where you throw ice cream, and pie, and pudding,” Anna said, “It’s you get messy and there’s a whole competition on how messy you can get. And it’s very fun.”

Anna has Osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease that causes bones to become easily breakable, and uses a wheelchair as her primary mode of transportation. Her mom said they first fell in love with the camp the first time they visited it.

“It was so wonderful that every activity was accessible, everything’s been thought about,” Miller-Voss said, “The kids get to come here and just be regular kids. They don’t have to think about their diagnosis. They’re not the only ones in the room in a wheelchair and it’s really a space where they can feel at home and have fun and that can be really important for kids nowadays.”

Anna first started going to the camp almost 10 years ago when she was 6 years old.

“When I first rolled in and I saw the picture of me looking back...brought back a lot of memories,” Anna said, “I don’t actually remember a lot from when I was younger, but I do remember the thrill and the excitement of going to camp, I’d never done it before I was a little nervous. But I knew that by the end of the week, I would be having an amazing time.”

Her mom added that while there’s not much of a difference between Anna’s first time at the camp and now, she has become better at all the different activities that she does as the years have progressed.

“It’s been fun to see her progress and learn these new skills that she wouldn’t have access to otherwise, Miller-Voss said, “She has always loved this place. I think maybe the biggest difference, I don’t think she cried uncontrollably leaving the first time. But there are definitely in the middle years, there were a few years where it’s just so hard to leave each summer.”

The camp was founded in October 2004 by the late Betty Turner Campbell.

“She had a dream to create a place in Scottsville, Kentucky, where children could have a safe haven to come where they could feel safe, respected, and loved, for their differences and their disabilities, and to be able to just be a kid,” CCK Communications and Marketing Officer. Emily Cosby said.

It then opened its first family weekend in February of 2008.

“Families are gonna roll on to camp Friday afternoon,” Cosby said, “They’re going to start with dinner and some fun activities, getting to know one another really building our relationships. Then Saturday is a fun-filled day from breakfast until dinnertime.”

For more information about CCK, visit courageouskids.org.

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