DEAFinitely on top

As a handful of returning campers looked through photographs at the Deaf Resource Center on Wednesday, they couldn't stop laughing.

There was a frog in the shower and a luau.

There was a carnival.

There were late-night conversations, art classes, games, a dance to end all dances, 79 campers and 28 staff.

There was just about everything one would find at summer camp except verbal conversation.

At DEAFinitely Youth Summer Camp, everybody uses sign language.

Half of the children are deaf. The other immediate relatives of someone who is deaf, camp director Catherine Black, who is an interpreter for the deaf, said. Half of the staff members are deaf as well.

Campers stayed in log cabins at Camp Ronald McDonald, nestled in the Sierra Nevada at Eagle Lake in Susanville, Calif. They got the usual camp experience of archery, boating, swimming and counselor hunts. They also received sign language courses required of everyone who is not fluent -- deaf and hearing alike.

"These kids live for camp," Black said. "It's their week. They live 51 weeks in a hearing world."

The idea of the camp is to create a place where, for a week anyway, the world around the deaf children is like them -- communicating with hands and expressive faces rather than voices and inflections.

Hearing campers who won't use sign language -- either exclusively or in addition to talking -- are sent home. During meals no talking is allowed, only sign language.

Ninety percent of deaf children have parents who don't sign, Black said. "So this is a week where everything is accessible from the minute they wake up in the morning to the minute they go to bed at night.

"The mission of our camp is to improve communication within the family -- ultimately that will improve the life of the child."

David Letkiewicz, Nevada's new deaf advocate, met with the campers. A deaf landscaper with his own business, a Metro Police officer and Miss Nevada all spent part of the week with the youths.

They all sign.

"Seeing a deaf role model is important," Black said. "These kids walked out of camp believing they can do anything."

Improving the deaf children's self-esteem is also part of the daily agenda, Black said. For some, just being around other deaf people is a boost.

"There isn't exclusion of me at deaf camp," 12-year-old Colleen Donohue said.

Donohue, a student at a hearing school, says she sometimes feels excluded when among hearing friends who are "voicing."

"Those things don't happen at deaf camp," she said.

Donohue has attended camp for five or six years. Her 15-year-old brother, Ryan, who can hear, also attends. Last week he was a counselor in training. "Most of the time he doesn't sign, but at camp he does," she said.

Other siblings of deaf children, such as Jacob Black and Jason Hicks, said it's easy to forget to sign at home. Yet both have learned to sign for their siblings.

Hicks, 11, whose younger brother, Casey, is deaf, admits that signing can be frustrating. Such frustration helps hearing children understand what their deaf siblings or parents deal with all the time, Black said.

While many family members try to sign, they often can't keep up, she said. That's one reason for the mandatory sign language classes at camp.

Others just don't bother.

"You'd be surprised how many parents don't sign," Debbie Hicks, mother of Casey and Jason, said. Many parents of deaf children send their children to schools that have programs for the deaf, but the children come home at night and have no communication with the family.

"This is the best family thing we do all summer long," Hicks said. Her husband is a camp counselor.

"It's helpful to the entire family," she said, especially for their son who is the only deaf student at Bartlett Elementary School.

The reasons vary why parents don't use sign language, Hicks said.

"I think it's a lot of work," Natalie Grupido, camp facilitator, said. "And I think parents think their children will (eventually) become hearing."

Grupido, who is deaf, said attending deaf camp as a child enabled her to bond with other children and make lifelong friends.

For families with only one deaf person, a lot of frustration can occur, she said. "This camp provides a release."

"People I bond with mostly are people who know my language," Grupido said. "It's difficult to bond with hearing people who don't know the language."

Grupido referred to a comment made by Helen Keller: "When you are blind you have a wall between yourself and things. When you are deaf you have a wall between yourself and people."

Deaf children "don't hear things other kids hear," Black said.

Which is why the parents were grateful to have Metro Sgt. Cindi West, a camp counselor, inform the children about drugs and gangs. "There are deaf gangs in L.A. that have had influence in Las Vegas," Black said. "And deaf children want to belong."

But life at camp wasn't all lectures and classes. The theme was "Celebrate America." Everyday was a different variation on the theme. Arts and crafts were tied into the daily concept.

The first day was a celebration of the Hawaiian islands, complete with a luau. The children learned a Polynesian dance. Day two was a celebration of American Indians. The third day celebrated city life. The fourth day honored rural America with a county fair, complete with a Sno-Kone machine and fortune teller. The fifth day celebrated Hispanic America.

There were also experiences unique to the camp. Counselors blew up balloons and passed them out to deaf kids so they could feel the vibration of the music through the balloons.

Black said she'd like to see more opportunities for local children to attend the camp. Because of space, some children had to be turned away.

About 280 children in the Clark County School District are deaf, Black said. There are about 1,300 deaf in Southern Nevada.

DEAFinitely Youth is sponsored by Paradise Sertoma Club, a service organization serving deaf children in the valley.

The cost to send 79 children to camp was around $43,000, Black said.

Fifty-three of the 79 children were sent through Sun Summer Camp Fund scholarships, Black said. Fund-raisers helped finance the rest.

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