Story by Mike Greenly
Only a few months ago, Irish media reported that elective surgeries were being postponed across the country. At the same time, many American hospitals were also unable to give care to patients who needed “elective” surgery. Ambulances were turned away reluctantly by hospital staff who were just too jammed with life-threatening covid needs.
Fortunately, others are acting on the mission to find ways to help those left out of needed care due to the inordinate focus on the pandemic. This is made especially poignant when it involves children, as is true for such organizations as Make-A-Wish Foundation. Recently, I became aware of another organization focused on children – Chai Lifeline. Although its origins are Jewish, the group offers help to others as well be they kids of Irish, Italian, German or other family origins.
“Those people changed our lives,” exclaimed a smart, serious financial exec during a business meeting. Suddenly his voice was filled with emotion. Eyes welling with tears, he spoke about Chai Lifeline as a worthy example of a tax-deductible charity.
Founded in 1987 by Rabbi Simcha Scholar, Chai Lifeline began by helping a group of eight children with cancer. These medically challenged kids were treated to a special summer camp in the Catskills after the normal camping season had ended. There were nurses, a doctor on-site and others who were helping these youngsters enjoy a delightful camp experience, something they and their parents had never imagined would come their way, given each child’s often life-threatening medical condition.
To borrow a description from the organization’s website, “in addition to helping with medical treatment, the goal is to bring actual joy (Simcha in Hebrew) into the lives of young patients and their families. This is achieved with thoughtful and creative family-centered programs, activities and services.”
The executive who had shared his story was an intelligent, level-headed pro, a successful leader in his field. Though he might not be expected to be so candid about such a personal experience in a business context, he shared his emotional story. Thanks to a Chai Lifeline experience, the man’s deathly ill brother (now deceased) had been suffering from pediatric leukemia. The child’s ordeal was relieved by time the boy spent at the organization’s Camp Simcha. “I’ll never forget the happiness they created for Bobby and for all of us. They made him feel like the most special little boy on earth and, as a result, the happiest. We all shared in that beautiful relief and escape.”
My colleague’s unexpected testimonial reflected the significant impact Chai Lifeline has on its many participants’ lives. This led me to Laib Roberts — majority owner of DRB Packaging in Rockledge, Florida — who knows that first-hand. Laib worked for nine years as a Chai lifeline fundraiser and now continues his direct affiliation with the organization as a fervent donor and believer in their mission. He hosts annual fund-raising dinners, for example, at Terrace on the Park – a banquet hall in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, NY. He still visits Camp Simcha to experience the difference it makes for kids and their families. Given Laib’s affiliation, I decided to learn more about Chai Lifeline from him directly and help put the word out about this less well-known organizations that helps kids with terminal diseases.
Q: How did you get involved?
LR: I’ve known about the organization from the start. Rabbi Scholar, its founder, is a long-time friend. We went to school together at the Mir Yeshiva Talmudical academy in Brooklyn. I believe he realized, even then, that there was a need for services in the Jewish community for sick children.
Q: How did covid affect the camp in 2020?
LR: The people involved are too caring and dedicated to have simply given up, despite the pandemic. It was against the law to operate an overnight camp because of the virus. So in June of 2020, Chai Lifeline unveiled “Camp Simcha Without Borders”. For the first time in their history, the team members ran day camps in cities across the United States – from the Catskills to Chicago, from Miami to Baltimore. These special sessions gave children unable to travel the chance to enjoy Simcha in their own hometowns – always conforming to state and local health and safety regulations.
Q: And before the pandemic?
LR: Every summer, seriously ill children are treated to amazing (always medically supervised) overnight camp experiences at Camp Simcha. These kids are battling cancer. Meanwhile, Camp Simcha Special is for children with other hematological illnesses and debilitating chronic conditions. In both environments, children experience safe, unexpected joys to the delight of themselves and their families.
Q: Who has been touched by Chai Lifeline?
LR: A family that’s going through serious pediatric illness, whether life-threatening illness or life-long, is in danger of disintegrating as a unit. Many of Chai Lifeline’s clients will tell you that without Chai Lifeline they could never have gotten through the ordeal. That is true both for families who had a happy ending and those with a tragic ending. Chai Lifeline’s primary mission is to provide the family with the support they need to navigate through the health crisis they’re facing.
On average, we lose the lives of about 25 children a year but the organization now works with over 5,900 children and families across the globe. It takes a lot of money to help them all.
Even after a child has passed, Chai Lifeline continues its support for bereaved families dealing with loss. Grief like theirs doesn’t just disappear and many grateful families stay connected to Chai Lifeline for years. As you’ll see on the website, the phenomenal services include counseling available for each individual family member, from siblings to grandparents in mourning. There’s home-based volunteer support, insurance advocacy and more. Even community services like crisis interventions, educational resources, volunteer training, and so on.
Throughout the kids’ stay, camp for them is a continuously beautiful celebration of fun and love. It’s a much needed distraction and escape from the daily dread of their focus on being sick. Children often comment on the relief they feel just being a “regular” boy or girl. Often for the first time in their lives, they’re among others who also battle illness daily and who know what it’s like to be “different” from friends and classmates back home. At camp, everyone is the same – part of a loving community with full acceptance and support.
There’s such thoughtfulness and caring that’s gone into Camp Simcha’s design. It’s got an array of amazing activities for children unable to attend any other camps. All activities are wheelchair accessible from the basketball court to the rope course. Ditto the arts and crafts room, video room, library and art studio. There’s even a swimming pool where children have been able to take the first steps of their entire lifetimes.
Just going to lunch at a camp can melt your heart. You might see a kid strapped into a wheelchair who needs a feeding tube to eat. Then, to his or her surprise, the chair is lifted by four counselors so that even this child can safely “dance” along to the music, participating with everyone else. With the pure bliss you see on that innocent little face – receiving positive attention and love and sharing in the fun – you simply can’t help but cry.
Q: Are the camps for Jewish children only?
LR: Not at all! As the organization expresses it, Chai Lifeline – not just the camps, but all its programs and support systems – are meant to “embody the ideals of compassion, kindness and caring for others inherent in Jewish culture and values.” Those benefits are open to all and all services are free of charge to ensure that every family has access to the programs it needs.
Q: What was one of the most memorable experiences that you, personally, had as a result of your involvement?
LR: I often visit Camp Simcha in Glen Spey, NY. Once I was there on the very first day the children were arriving. I saw joy – “simcha” – created before my eyes. I remember standing at the entrance where the staff welcomes the little campers. I was there for about two hours and cried straight through all of it!
The process of arrivals varies. Some kids arrive in groups on a bus. Others are brought by their parents or by counselors. And as a sign of how dedicated the staff is, a counselor might even fly from Florida to Los Angeles to personally accompany a child to the camp and then back home again.
When kids show up on arrival day, many among the staff are dressed in fun costumes with music being played as greeters dance along. As each child arrives, they are enveloped in love. It’s a love fest for the staff and one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
This is where a boy or girl facing a lifelong illness gets enveloped in love and fun created just for him or her. Parents tell us that this escape from the steady battle with sickness is a joy that’s remembered for the rest of a child’s life … and forever by the family.
Q: Where does Chai Lifeline operate?
LR: They operate and provide services all across the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa and Israel. The answer, increasingly, is across the globe although they’ve not yet expanded into Ireland.
As you’ll see on the website, there are office locations in Greater NY, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Midwest and the West Coast. They even have locations in Israel. the U.K., Canada and Belgium. The organization makes such a huge difference for children and their families in terrible need, I hope it will keep expanding around the world.
Hopefully, readers will visit the website and make a donation. Or perhaps they’ll contribute in other ways like hosting a fund-raising event. The website offers a bunch of inventive ideas. Some folks even donate their hair so that a child – made bald by cancer treatment – has one less way of feeling different and “other than.” Donations to Chai Lifeline help offer this relief to children and their families.