Genesis - The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp

I had whenever I'm in the dumps I come up here and it reaffirms everything that I think is really good and generous about this country and to have some kid who's been in the hospital for six months out of the year come up and say this place this to come back here is what I live for pretty potent stuff in 1988 one of the most innovative camps in the world opened to children with life-threatening illnesses Paul Newman and an unlikely group of individuals designed and built a camp that would become a model for camps all over the world this is their story ready grab a fork here dig in the cola Wall Gang Camp really began with a bottle of salad dressing the food business generated profit immediately with the profits escalating ruling who came to me and said why don't we give all the money to charity which elicited a great response from charities all over the country then we have given money this year doll timers research after a year or two of giving all this largesse away Norman one day suggested that we should have a charity of our own during one of our dinners he mentioned this idea about building a little camp for children with cancer and so they could raise a little hell he was totally enthusiastic just the same way as he was about the salad dressing Paul was very aware of cancer in his own family since his mother and father both died of cancer and in typical Newman fashion instead of taking time to research it he said good let's do it for next summer what I was trying to do I think was to acknowledge luck extraordinary luck in my lifetime and and the brutality of luck in the lives of some especially young kids Newman's dream would prove a unique challenge how to create a magical camp and yet still provide essential medical services and vision was a camp with the doctor as its heart and soul Hotchner sought out Yale New Haven's dr. Howard Pearson I was the senior pediatric blood doctor in Connecticut it was a fortuitous time for me because I did have time I was looking for ways to do something different I recruited Vince Conti in the camp because I felt we need managerial skills which none of us had I got a call from Howard Pearson and he said Vince he said I I'm not sure what to make of this but I just got a call from a guy who said he was Paul Newman he wanted to come and talk to us about developing a camp for Sick Kids and specifically to see if we could arrange for the healthcare that he knew that these kids would would need he was serious about his intent but wanted very much to proceed with it in a in a fanciful way and that combination I had never seen before with a strong medical team behind the project the search for land on which to build the camp began in earnest the summer of 86 was spent going through a series of camp sites as I realized that we were all a bunch of rank amateurs who will respect the camp's in fact the only one that had any tangible experience with camp was sam ross for 40 years dr. samuel ross had run the green chimneys school which pairs troubled children with injured animals it was dr. Ross's son who would put him in touch with Newman's team David Ross was fighting a losing battle with Hodgkin's disease when he read about Newman's plants he urged his father to get involved David said you know dad you oughta contact him and say look I know how to run camps I've been doing it for a long time and I want to be of help Sam Ross would be instrumental advising us about how to have a kitchen keep the facilities what kind of services you must have David Ross never lived to see the camp he lost his battle with cancer in 1986 but David's wishes remained a driving force for Sam distances didn't make a difference Sam was adverse to New York but he would he would travel to Westport for these meetings is on a drop of a drop of a hat looking back on the camp and thinking about David I think David would be very pleased how I was involved the search for suitable land continued throughout 1986 when Ursula received a fateful phone call from the realtor a real estate person called me up and said I think I have a good place here we went up there and I said oh my god I found it the lake was huge there were wildflowers everywhere but there were no roads no electricity it was just pure land the sweeping 344 acre site located in rural northeast Connecticut had been owned by the Herrick a leaf family since the 1940s the Heracles had farmed the land for years but by the late 60s family farms were no longer economically viable in the Northeast so George Herrick a Lee and his father bulldozed most of the buildings and put the land up for sale my impression was that it was gorgeous that it was a wonderful place at summer camp and that eventually we could make it into a place that was absolutely accessible and friendly we had two or three public hearings before the Zoning Commission one of the things they kept harping about was the taxes they're gonna lose we're gonna lose taxes on that property for one thing and I still have to know from the selectmen or what how we're gonna benefit by it so what we did was agree to pay them an equivalent of taxes as a contribution and conferring with mr. Newman and his principles today they said that certainly they'd be willing to consider some payments in lieu of taxes so that the project will be expenditure neutral for the town of Ashford I'm just proud that he's even coming to this town but if the plans for the camp were to give nationwide exposure Newman's celebrity would not be enough operating out of the Newman's own offices personal Gwynn worked tirelessly to get the word out Ursula was right at the head of that parade she knew how to get things done and how to how to make sure that when you led in an initiative the public was back there following you actor Paul Newman announced today that he is sponsoring the first summer camp in the state for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases at Yale New Haven Hospital which will oversee the camp's medical programs Newman's shed his movie tough-guy image to say the idea for the facility was prompted by personal knowledge of young victims of cancers maybe it was the loss of some friends of mine the cancer young men and it was all cumulative I don't know where it came from it simply was there one morning if you were to have a fantasy of what a summer camp should be like with no restraints as far as space or money or facilities this will be that once we were able to determine that there weren't any showstoppers from the town's perspective then I think the next step was to get serious about designing the camp and actually getting on with building it Conte would not have to go far to find one of America's leading architects to head the project Tom Beebe was Dean of the architecture school at Yale University in the very beginning Paul was interested the idea this would be a western town I was trying to sort through that as an idea an architectural idea it seemed like a curious idea to do in Connecticut we did an initial scheme that was more like a camp I mean it actually had a kind of main building where that town center was and Paul the reaction wasn't good I mean he thought it was to institutional looking it became clear that he wanted something was extremely freewheeling and not in any way Orthodox these kids have spent their time in hospitals they're institutionalized a lot of their time you have to make this completely on out institutional though it obviously had a medical aspect to it it had to not look like it this town was this kind of fantasy place where kids go and they forget their past they forget the medical problems they have and they lead a different life here the concept of the camp was not the only unique aspect so was the deadline Tom and his team of architects would have less than a year to design over 30 buildings we'd never done anything this ad hoc or this kind of fast we used to mean it in restaurants in Westport we'd create this enormous scene in these restaurants for dinner we have the drives our roll and roll on the floor talked through the building's eat dinner at the same time get back in a car and drive back to New Haven and draw them up again actor/director and salad dressing mogul Paul Newman helped break ground today for a summer camp for seriously ill children may the good Lord hallow this ground and the people who come to dwell here what we're gonna do up here is going to be a joyous transformation I think it's gonna finally wind up to be a statement of people's generosity this was land that had been untouched and we were gonna turn it over to children and that was a great emotional moment but the groundbreaking ceremony in late 1986 was purely symbolic although Conover construction had been contracted to build the camp millions of dollars would need to be raised before construction could begin it would take Newman's enduring optimism to keep the project on track it was like no man was behind the wheel of a race he was just gung-ho you didn't even know how much it's going to cost here it was like you have a dream and you want to do it but nobody knew what exactly we're gonna do and how we're gonna do it because of Newman's commitment to getting this done we did not wait for a successful capital campaign it was all systems go from day one we're gonna raise this money there's no question about it and if there was you're gonna build it anyways we began to get an outpouring of contributions from schoolchildren all over the country they would stage FICA thumbs and bacon thumbs and kids who said this summer I operated a lemonade stand and I made five dollars and 40 cents that I'm gonna send it to the camp but it would take much more than lemonade money to build the camp to qualify for nonprofit status at least half the money would have to come from a source other than Paul Newman in the summer of 1987 khaled al hajj alam a young saudi living in washington DC heard of Newman's plans Khalid had been suffering from a rare blood disorder since birth I thought it was important for him to be Newman because he was at an age where he could articulate how important it would have been for him to go to a camp so I brought him to new zone I think we were there an hour and a half and he just told the story to Newman and it was just the most fascinating story you could possibly hear from what was obviously an extraordinary extraordinary human being he talked about the camp and he looked at the model and he said that how much something like this would have meant to him if he to have it and as he was leaving he turned to Newman and said because I am a Saudi I have the opportunity to petition like king for requests and I intend to try to ask him ask him for a gift to the whole along again two weeks later Khaled called with good news the major donation the camp so desperately needed would come from the government of Saudi Arabia Paul called me up and he said how much money do you think we're getting I said fifty and he said five million he said the only thing that you have to do is come down and pick up the check I said I'll be down there Lindstrom we flew down there a few days later we had a wonderful reception at the Embassy we got on to Newman's plane with the check for five million dollars at one point Newman turned to me and said we go to Mexico or heard can we go back to Connecticut with the money in hand construction of the camp was underway by the fall of 1987 there would be no time to spare as Newman insisted that the first campers arrive just nine months later to say that people like me and others were nervous about that kind of aspiration and it was is an unbelievable understatement nobody believed that could happen with the exception of Paul it was build in design all at once the pace of the project meant that we and the design team had to work hand in him mike Kolakowski was 26 years old when Simon Conover assigned to him the job of heading up the construction project to the elder Newman Mike seemed a curious choice we were in paralysis of fear that the thing would not get built in time and I called Simon I said he sent a child up here to do a man's work he says wait he didn't have a lot experience but he had a great spirit he was like a bulldog he's gonna get the thing done no matter what he figured out how to build that thing sequentially in a way that didn't sort of make sense on paper but it made sense the way he build it so he finished buildings as he wanted and then he'd move out of the next building I mean that was the way to do it I mean I think he was very resourceful that resourcefulness would be tested during the harsh winter conditions of 1987 and 88 one of the worst on record this camp was started in the fall and they wanted it ready to open in the spring and God sent snow and God sent ice and God sent cold I made a deal with the log cabin manufacturer that we needed to take some of the people from Canada and there was five gentlemen that came to Connecticut lived in trailers on site one guy picked the logs up pulled him down another guy drove the spikes another guy put the sealant another guy you know use the chainsaw it was unbelievable we couldn't find people locally that could produce like that Mike could also count on Newman during that winter after receiving 14 inches of snow one night in early December Paul called Mike at the worksite to see how he could help he says well I want to do something special for the guys but I said well maybe we should have a party or something I here at the camp he said no I don't want I don't want it at the camp I want it off camp and I want to provide the biggest stakes we can provide as much beer as the guys can drink so we would go all the way up there and Paul would go around and greet them all and tell what a great job they were doing and he was their cheerleader I think Newman signed more autographs than he signed in his lifetime to this day the workers talked about he and Hotch and the way they really appreciated the effort that all the guys gave it was almost week to week that you couldn't recognize the place that it was literally a transformation the log cabins sort of her rose from the ground as if by magic the cafeteria which is a probably that the centerpiece of the camp wasn't there one week and the next week it was there in a way we're all like transport into being like little kids building sandcastles or something because it all had an unreal aspect to it it has this kind of sheer pure imagination applied to a building process and Sam Ross was very helpful during this this whole period to it because he had considerable insights and expertise if you look at it you can see that it's spread out over quite a few acres I was concerned as an educator now how would these children where would the children go to the bathroom I was constantly looking at the building and sing where's the bathroom where's the bathroom I became known as the toilet man as winter turned to spring the construction crew battled a new enemy on the jobsite mud this kind of began his mud bath it was almost impossible to get around I remember I still remember there as they finished the millions up they wrap them up in this scheme because they all get slapped with mud with passing vehicles I can remember going home and being covered in mud and walking down to a job to one of the buildings and losing your boots I was horrified this beautiful piece of land it looked horrendous overwhelming I thought they've ruined it it wasn't till mid-may when everything started to dry out and the rain stopped that the roads and the paths and everything became dry as we got nearer to what we had planned to be the opening date it seemed unlikely that we could have it done I discussed with Newman maybe putting off the opening of the camp so no you don't put it off we just redouble our efforts to get it done in order to meet the June 4th deadline construction crews worked around the clock seven days a week the Eagles went aside and the objective was to get it complete as long as the communication lines are open everyone is positive and moving ahead as a group you can do anything in building and this is structured to do that had the right personalities the impetus was their ever present was Paul Newman as the deadline looms Paul spent an increasing amount of time at the job site he was totally involved he knew every finish every the hardware went by everything went by every detail went by him and he approved it all when budget concerns threatened to delay the construction of the Olympic sized pool local contractors came up with an innovative plan the swimming pool Association of Connecticut decided they'd make a project out of it so all of us winning a major swimming pool people came together one guy came in and ducked the hole one poured in the cement one put the tiles in and it was just a labor of love we saw people who were competitive on a daily basis really unite and become one for purpose at the end when it was all finished we had a priest a rabbi and a minister blessing the pool river floor event it was just a celebration of the pool we thought that if we told the world we have this camp parents and hospitals would be deceipt us with the requests the fact was nobody was knocking on our door by the spring of 1988 less than 50 of a potential 90 children had signed up for the first session the shakedown cruise would be only half full we had more staff that first session than we had kids and we were asking kid we were inviting them to stay session after session so that we would have the beds filled you know parents were not going to send their sick kids to a to a place that had a moviestar connected to it but did not have any credentials as the dedication approached landscaping was put in to repair the trampled grounds and final touches were applied to the buildings everyone pitched in to help including the new staff most of orientation was picking up nails and scrubbing the gummy off the toilets just getting the site ready and the smell was awesome the smell was just wood wood everywhere it port it was a miserable morning and I remember driving around with witches just to make sure that the puddles didn't cause problems you never had this sense right up until the probably the hour the first kids arrived that we were ready but somehow the kids arrived and the camp was absolutely ready the camp facility was ready to have staff was ready the bulldozers left them if children came in and we were busy taking care of kids on that first June day there was more a initiation into fire than rather a dedication we just went to work thank you we are kind of witness to a mini miracle here there wasn't anything above ground here on August 1st of last year and in nine months there are 35 buildings it was a terrible winter a lot of rain he we were lucky enough to avoid today but it's the listen the roof is not leaking isn't that one that first day when children actually came to the camp and parents and we celebrated the event it was memorable it was overwhelming I must say it that obviously brought it too close when you see these children their love their yell and scream dancing around and carrying on you just forget that they are very ill at the moment it's lovely because they're at peace I'd never really been away before and my parents are very kind very loving people but also very sheltering and they said this will be good for you and they left feeling I guess like the worst parents and Tiger wealth I called home according to my mom the conversation was to the effect hi mom having a great time probably won't call again click internet and that was it it was Newman's Drive that built that camp that whole belief and the absolute refusal to accept any kind of rebuff that was going when he toasted the staff and I remember him saying I brought camp to this point I've taken it this far now you you take it the rest of the way Paul makes it possible for other people to make a contribution I think personally this was a wonderful opportunity to have I've grown in this opportunity I mean when you talk to this is kind of sense of life is really serious but you can't take it too seriously and I think that in the end that fed it's way another camp it is a far exceeded everybody's expectations including Newman's so when I heard this is going to be a great place for kids to raise a little hell and you know whatever I thought that's great that's fun we far underestimated what effect that would have on their health and on their spirit and on their willingness to fight to keep alive so that they can come back for another summer session and I started 16 years ago I felt that I would be a consultant dropping in periodically during the course of the summer and have spent the better part of 16 summers in Ashford there's a reward that is much more than you put into it what happens here transcends the logs of the cabins and the water in the lake it is where alchemy and magic live the hole-in-the-wall gang camps its newly risen from a dream a testament to man's aspirations fulfilled there was a story early on Life Magazine did the one part of that story that I remember most clearly is a picture of the group that was so involved in the creation of the camp and as I look at that picture what strikes me is that every one of them brought a special blend of background expertise knowledge viewpoint on things but what they shared in common was a seal a fire in the belly about children you

Channel: The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp

Views: 6,575

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: Paul, Newman, Summer, Camp, Ashford, Connecticut, Hole, in, the, Wall, Gang, Cancer, Sickle, Cell

Id: 5fgIn7_nWd4

Length: 28min 36sec (1716 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 28 2014