Camp Jabberwocky

http://www.campjabberwocky.org/

On a small island in the North Atlantic, off the southern shore of Massachusetts, there is a place where hope flourishes. The place is Camp Jabberwocky — a small summer camp for the disabled, situated in the northern woods of Martha's Vineyard, not far from Lake Tashmoo.

Camp started as a small experiment: a handful of children with cerebral palsy, a tiny summer cottage, a director (Helen Lamb), and a young assistant. From there, Camp has grown to a 14-acre site, 17 buildings and a volunteer staff of well over 60 people, serving over 100 disabled children and adults every summer.

Jabberwocky emerged in the summer of 1953, when people shunned those with disabilities, services for the disabled were minimal and rights for the disabled were not even an issue. Nonetheless, Jabberwocky sprang forth.

Jabberwocky lives well beyond the borders and definitions of camp. It may have all the outward appearances and necessities of any summer camp, but step into this curious microcosm and the images of a camp quickly fade.

People with disabilities rarely achieve more than footnote status in the pages of history. They have been left out of the account because they have been left out of the culture. Jabberwocky, though, is a different culture. It is a place where disabled folks are at the center of a community rather than at the periphery.

Jabberwocky is a community. It has families, and extended families, and grandparents, and children. It has births, and deaths, and marriages. It has oral history, traditions, myths, and legends. It has people with a full range of abilities, skills, and interests. And these people work, play, eat, and create together. They argue and dance together. They write and cry together. And, like people in other communities, they are here year after year. A few come and go each season, but the majority are here living together every summer.

Jabberwocky is not the same old story…


Email: Info@campjabberwocky.org
Phone: 508.693.2339

Camp Address:
200 Greenwood Avenue Ext.
Vineyard Haven, MA 02568

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 1357
Vineyard Haven, MA 02568