Sports Camp for youth with vision loss receives community support
Vision Forward is grateful for the growing community support and interest of its ‘Play it Forward’ Youth Sports Camp, for youth who are blind or visually impaired. This year’s camp, held July 23-25 on the Marquette University campus, was generously sponsored by Cognex Corporation’s West Allis branch and Thrivent Financial’s Greenfield location.
This year, the attendees enjoyed sports like POUND, adaptive bowling, and Judo. Guest speaker, at the closing ceremony of camp, was Marissa Arndt, a Team USA Paralympian working toward being in the 2020 Paralympic games for Judo.
It’s hard to imagine, but 70% of school-age children who are blind have NEVER participated in any sport or physical activity. Vision Forward is determined to change this by offering this Sports Camp and other physical activities to empower youth to be physically active despite their vision loss, to improve their health and to have fun!
“Vision Forward is proud to offer the ‘Play it Forward Sports Camp,” said Terri Davis, Executive Director for Vision Forward. “This is an amazing collaborative effort and we strongly believe in its long term impact on the youth. We’re especially appreciative of our event sponsors support of creating wellness opportunities for youth with vision loss.”
For the kids who participate in camp, it is three days of fun, active engagement in sports and an opportunity to enhance their skills and independence. “We hope to create more awareness of this camp so that in the future the camp has the resources to grow and have an impact on even more kids,” stated Davis.