“You need to realize how much of a blessing you [Farm Bureau Insurance] are making to these families with your help.” – Ann Walsh, Founder and Director of Camp Magical Moments
By Mike Myers
Camp Magical Moment’s mission statement says “Our dream is to offer children with cancer a place of retreat in an environment of fun, friendship, and love.”
Since 2004, Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company of Idaho has helped make that dream come true by providing Camp Magical Moments with the general and auto liability insurance the camp needs to operate.
Jamie Carter, manager of Farm Insurance Brokerage Company, works with the camp’s staff to provide the coverage. Jamie has also visited Camp Magical Moments and describes it as a “special place with lots of activities to help kids get their minds off of cancer.”
The camp was founded in 2003 by a former executive director of the American Cancer Society, Ann Walsh. Her hope was to create a camping experience in the southeastern Idaho mountains along the South Fork of the Snake River for children who have had or currently have cancer. The ranch offers tennis, fishing, horseback riding, and lots of Old West experiences for the campers. The camp is free of charge for the 25-35 campers who are selected each year to attend.
In a letter to Farm Bureau Insurance, Walsh thanked the company for its support. The letter read:
“You make this camp possible for these children. Some of them cannot go to regular camps because they do no have a full-time medical team of staff who are trained in pediatric oncology. We do. You need to realize how much of a blessing you are to these families with your help. In closing, I want to tell you how thankful we are to you for providing us our insurance. On behalf of the Board of Directors, the planning committee, and the volunteers, THANK YOU.”
For information about donating to the camp, please visit: visit: https://www.campmagicalmoments.org/donate/
On their website, you can also find the following poem by Izeyah Yenter, one of the Magical Moments campers who lost his battle with cancer in January of 2006.
I Wonder Why
by Izeyah Yenter, 1995-2006
I wonder why He chose me,
A cell growing out of control so rapidly,
I wonder why He chose me,
A tumor on my brainstem that nobody could see,
I wonder why He chose me,
A year to live, it just can’t be,
There are so many things that I still want to be,
I wonder why He chose me,
Hospitals, doctors, MRI scans, and shots,
the pills I can swallow, the Thick-It I can not,
I wonder why He chose me,
To teach me and the world that only He holds the key,
To miracles, cures, blessings, and love,
God holds the keys to all of the above,
I no longer wonder why He chose me,
I live everyday as if it is my last,
and be the best I can be.
