Camp Bluebird celebrates 29 years of cancer retreats

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - It’s a disease that has become all too common. “Cancer is so prevalent with every family and it touches so many others,” said Camp Counselor, Ed Davis.

Davis founded Camp bluebird in the late 1980s. “Everybody that’s been here loves it, I’ve been coming back for 29 years now and it’s been a great undertaking,” It’s the first camp for cancer patients and survivors in Mississippi.

“My tumor is in my sciatic notch, so it’s very painful in my hip and sometimes I limp around and everything. Sometimes I don’t event want to walk,” said Camper, Dawn Nonemacher. Campers like Nonenmacher and Pamela Blum come to Bluebird for fellowship.

“I felt better talking to somebody that had been through it. You know everybody in my family, I could talk to them, but if you haven’t been through it, they really don’t know what your feeling or what you’re going through,” said Blum.

Alex Wade who is cancer-free, volunteers to help campers rest and relax. “I came to camp Bluebird because when I was younger my mom was diagnosed with cancer and so it’s really important for me to like help give back,” Wade stated.

Nonenmacher said she can’t rest for long, because her job is to make her friends feel good. “If I’m feeling down and out, it makes me feel better if I can put a smile on my face and see somebody else smile,” she shared that Bluebird is the one place where everyone is family. “It’s always nice to have some place to come where you don’t have to think about being a cancer victim, or a cancer survivor. You just live and everybody knows how you feel,”

Camp Bluebird is held annually at Paul B. Johnson State Park. For more information click here.