Salem summer camp reopens with a tribute to volunteer
"This was what her whole life was about," said the father of Jill Bailey Chenet, who died last year.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
She was gentle and compassionate, especially when it came to children.
As a teen, Jill Bailey Chenet even spent several years volunteering at a Salem summer camp for developmentally delayed children. It wasn’t surprising when she later became a teacher working with hearing impaired students.
Last summer the young educator and expectant mother died while swimming off the North Carolina coast. Chenet and her husband, who nearly drowned as well, were caught in a rip current during a seaside vacation.
Nearly a year after her death, Chenet has left behind a powerful legacy.
The Salem camp that made an impression on her years ago ended last year at the hand of budget cuts. But this week it returned, now named for Chenet.
“This was what her whole life was about,” said her father, Jack Bailey, while visiting the camp Tuesday. “Everything they’re doing here Jill would have loved.”
Jill’s Buddy Camp, as it’s now known, matches teenagers with young developmentally delayed children. For the children, the camp provides enrichment activities and one-on-one attention. For the teens, or buddies, it’s a glimpse into a career in education and a lesson on appreciating people’s abilities.
“She would love this,” Bailey said.
The camp is the brainchild of Tommy Barber, a retired Salem City Schools staffer, who started it in 1984. By bringing back the longtime program he hopes to honor Chenet, bring attention to the camp’s importance and spread Buddy Camp to other areas.
“Buddy Camp was originally designed to have kind of a one-week shot in the arm type thing for little preschoolers that particularly had speech, hearing and other intellectual or fine motor disorders,” he said.
Students spend about half their time at camp in the classroom working on different skills and the other half on field trips. This week they’ve ventured to the Virginia Museum of Transportation and Mill Mountain Zoo, among other places.
Almost two dozen mostly pre-kindergarten students were dropped off Tuesday for the start of the four-day camp. Quiet and unsure, many needed coaxing. But it was a different story days later when the animated children held hands with their buddies, pulling them all over Mill Mountain Zoo.
The connection formed through the week is what the camp is about. It’s a bond built on compassion, making the camp a fitting tribute to Chenet, whose love for children made her light up.
The camp’s powerful impact is part of why Barber wants to maintain and expand the program. He was able to bring the camp back this year through fundraising. Barber said the goal is to continue fundraising, establish an endowment and expand the program while honoring Chenet.
The camp and her memory are close to his heart. Their families are linked. Barber’s oldest daughter, Brandi Bailey, is married to Chenet’s brother and his youngest daughter Aimee Rudic was a close friend of Chenet’s.
The girls all participated in the camp as buddies and Rudic and Bailey were back this week to help.
Rudic said she meet Chenet in the sixth grade at Andrew Lewis Middle School and from then on the two were friends.
“There’s a huge hole in my heart being back here. Her not being here is tough. It embodies her,” Rudic said. “I think she is with us.”
She described her friend as “the perfect mix of sweet, fun and playful.” Bailey said the whole family is that way.
She said “they notice the little things in people that are gifts,” which in many ways is what the camp and the bonds created there are about.
That mission is one Chenet’s husband hopes to share through a short film he’s creating about the camp.
Matt Chenet, an independent producer for film, television and documentaries, said he hopes the film can be used to raise funds for the camp. Chenet, who lives in Washington, has spent all week in Salem filming. He said it was something important to his late wife.
“It clearly impacted her and helped shape her,” he said. “She is part of so much that’s going on there.”
He described her as someone who was “born to be around kids” and they were drawn to her smile and loving personality.
“She had a sort of a childlike heart, a big heart and fragile heart. She could relate to kids on that level and they could relate to her on that level,” he said. “I guess I feel closer to her when I’m with kids because they are so resilient.”
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