VALDOSTA – This year’s Winnersville Camp Cocoon was the biggest yet with over 50 campers participating from Lowndes, Brooks, Colquitt, Cook, Lanier and Berrien Counties.
Winnersville Camp Cocoon is a separation camp designed to help children, in South Georgia, ages 5-17 learn to cope with separation due to death, divorce, incarceration, deployment, abuse, bullying, or anything else that would create emotional instability or “normalcy” in their lives. These children are brought together in a safe fun environment where they can participate in several activities. Winnersville Camp Cocoon is a spinoff of the PruittCares Foundation’s Camp Cocoon that takes place every summer in Toccoa, GA
“The VSU Lady Blazers were there with their coach and they were amazing as always,” said camp director Alice Popielarz. “We had volunteers from VSU, Habitat for Humanity and numerous private volunteers.”
Along with all the volunteers providing their help, BounceTime Party rentals donated a large slide for campers, Chick-Fil-A donated lunch and Wendy’s donated free frosty coupons.
The camp lasted from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., during which time campers were able to participate in different forms of therapy, including sports and music therapies, and created various crafts to take home, including memory pillows, sensory bottles and paracord bracelets.
“We had kids who went from hanging their head and not looking up to, at the end of camp, laughing and talking,” Popielarz said.
The end of camp was celebrated with a butterfly release, which Popielarz estimates had over 250 people in attendance.
The butterfly release “symbolizes these children who have spent the day in their cocoons growing and becoming stronger. By the end of the day they emerge as butterflies, hopefully armed with the tools and resources to help them fly.”
With this success of this year’s camp and the large increase in camper numbers, Popielarz hopes that next year’s camp could possibly be overnight.
“When you go from 23 campers last year to over 50 this year, it makes the goal of an overnight camp closer than I thought,” Popielarz said. “Hopefully the clay shoot in August will allow for this. I think it’s doable.”
Funding for Winnersville Camp Cocoon is done entirely through local fundraising efforts. The annual clay shoot is always held on the second Saturday in August. Last year’s event brought in over $10,000 for the camp. This year’s clay shoot will be August 11 at Southwind.
More information about Camp Cocoon and the upcoming clay shoot can be found on Facebook at Winnersville Camp Cocoon.
