Disciple: HUGS is Back

By Summerlee Walter

Elizabeth’s buddy made sure I knew about Elizabeth’s most recent accomplishment: a silver medal in soccer at the Special Olympics USA Games held in Orlando the month before. Alli’s buddy encouraged Alli to tell me about the brand-new nephew who occasioned her “Best. Aunt. Ever.” T-shirt. Earlier, I’d overheard a buddy calmly explain to a staff member how he was monitoring his camper’s bowel movements to make sure he received the proper treatment for his gastrointestinal issues. With respect to teenage boys everywhere, it was the first time I’d ever heard one discuss poop in a professional manner.

[Scenes from the carnival and campfire gathering held on the Thursday of HUGS Camp. Photos by Summerlee Walter]

This is HUGS Camp in a nutshell: high school buddies collaborating with a mostly young adult staff to provide their campers, who live with a range of developmental and physical disabilities, with a typical week of summer camp. It’s a careful balance of large-scale logistics—the camp’s three nurses dispense hundreds of medications to campers throughout the day—and careful attention to individual needs. For some campers, receiving the wrong color foam noodle during pool time can ruin the entire day. The buddies know their campers, however, so they distribute pool noodles correctly, call across the water when a favorite song plays over the sound system, and provide multiple gentle reminders when highly anticipated plans change due to COVID-19 precautions or inclement weather.

This year’s camp was especially poignant. For campers, buddies and staff alike, HUGS is the highlight of their year, and the two-year hiatus on in-person camp during the pandemic was difficult for everyone. While HUGS took place digitally in 2020 and 2021, a Zoom meeting is not the same as a live talent show, communal meals, in-person worship, camp songs around the fire, a dance party and an outdoor carnival. Like so many activities, when HUGS returned in full this year, things were different. A few long-time campers had died during the pandemic. Many buddies aged out, and this year’s cohort consisted almost entirely of newcomers. Lead diocesan youth missioner and HUGS maestro Lisa Aycock and the core staff adapted, using the changing landscape to strategize new ways to share leadership and responsibility and to refocus on team-building and respectful partnerships. For examples, “buddies” were previously “helper campers,” but, as the age gap between the high school volunteers and some long-time attendees continues to widen, the idea of a much-younger helper started to irk some campers. (This year, the oldest camper was 64; the youngest, 11.)

This is not the first time HUGS has needed to adapt to a seismic change. The camp originated as the final week of a six-week diocesan summer camp program at the diocesan-owned Summit in what is now Haw River State Park. When the Diocese of North Carolina sold the Summit to the State of North Carolina in 2004, the summer camp program moved to Lake Logan for the 2005 session. Lake Logan could not accommodate HUGS, which happened that year only because college student Nancy Carter, a long-time HUGS volunteer, called Mike Hoffman, then-director of the diocesan summer camp program, and volunteered to run the camp if Hoffman would liaise with the Diocese and sign contracts. The two continued to run HUGS until it returned to a more formal relationship with the Diocese in 2008.

It’s not surprising Carter acted as she did when it seemed HUGS might not take place that summer almost 20 years ago. “HUGS gets in your blood,” Aycock explained.

Based on everything I’ve seen while visiting HUGS throughout the years, she’s right. Alli has been a camper since the fourth grade. Now 34, she’s part of a group of lifelong friends who have gathered at HUGS for decades, traveling from as far away as Texas. Taylor, who has attended as a camper for decades and serves as a volunteer firefighter, posts on social media year-round about his love for HUGS. Lauren, who now lives in Los Angeles and has multiple acting credits to her name, started as a buddy 16 years ago and has missed only two summers since then, when she couldn’t afford the flight back to North Carolina. Russ, who led the activities team this summer and is in his 11th year participating in HUGS, also started as a buddy in eighth grade. His decade of experience with HUGS inspired him to pursue his master’s in special education, which he completed this spring. Other staff members take time off from work—one’s a butcher, others work as teachers or nurses—to attend camp. Hoffman, who is still on the staff of HUGS, was joined this year by two nephews, one a buddy and one a camper, and a few students from the Cannon School in Charlotte, where he teaches history.

That’s what HUGS is: a family affair, whether that family is biological or chosen. When you are part of the HUGS family, you are never alone.

Summerlee Walter is the communications coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina.