“Believe you can achieve!”
Camp Abilities PA for Athletes with Vision Loss Celebrates 20th Anniversary at WCU
“Invigorating” and “barrier-busting” is how Dr. Elizabeth Foster ’06 describes the spirit of Camp Abilities PA, a residential educational sports camp for youth with vision loss or blindness that returned to West Chester University for its 20th anniversary this Memorial Day weekend.
An associate professor in adapted physical activity/education (APA/E) and director of Camp Abilities PA at WCU, Dr. Foster lights up and overflows with passion when she talks about this special camp for youth ages 7 to 18 who are blind or have low vision. She has witnessed firsthand the special, redefining moments for the young athletes who personify the camp’s mottos: “Believe you can achieve” and “Loss of sight, not a loss of vision.”
“One of my biggest goals always is to see the progress that our athletes make within just that short amount of time… but to also just slow down and to observe and watch those changes happening,” Foster noted in relation to the goals of this year’s camp. “For many of our athletes, when they go back to their communities and schools, they’re just that one student with blindness or vision loss. When they’re at camp, they’re surrounded by friends and so many others who have the same difficulties or challenges that they might experience. It’s rewarding just watching that family mentality develop to where I can make sure to push those athletes to find people who support them.”
Camp Abilities PA combined 25 one-on-one performance coaches, 20 head coaches who have prior experience with the camp, and the student administration team comprising WCU majors in special education, sports medicine, health and physical education, and adapted physical education minors. Athletes participated in a variety of sports, including five-a-side soccer, cross-country running, field events, tandem biking, and swimming. Additionally, Camp Abilities offers sports such as goalball, tennis, gymnastics, water polo, and beep baseball. Camp traditionally concludes with a triathlon.
Dr. Foster’s journey with Camp Abilities began long before she became its director. As a WCU undergraduate majoring in health and physical education, she was involved in several Camp Abilities locations across the country and then returned to WCU for the first year of camp in 2005. Since then, she’s worked her way from one-on-one coach to group leader, sports specialist, and now, director, all while keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the camp’s mission: to help athletes with vision loss realize their potential, both on and off the field.
Camp Abilities is a true WCU original: established by an alumna, originally directed by a now-retired kinesiology professor, continued by her daughter who is also an alumna, and staffed by current students who often — like Dr. Foster — come back year after year to coach.
Dr. Monica Lepore, professor emerita of kinesiology, established WCU’s adapted physical education (APE) program in 1987 and the minor in physical education for individuals with disabilities in 2006. During her time as a professor, she taught a student, Dr. Lauren Lieberman ’87, who has been a kinesiology faculty member at SUNY Brockport since 1995. Dr. Lieberman found her calling working with youth with sensory impairments, resulting in the official launch of the first Camp Abilities in 1996 in Brockport, NY. Since then, Camp Abilities has expanded across the U.S., including Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, Texas, and across the globe including Ireland, Brazil, and Ghana thanks to Dr. Lieberman’s Global Fulbright Scholarship. When Dr. Lepore retired, Camp Abilities PA was co-directed by Dr. Foster and Dr. Lepore’s daughter, Dr. Maria Lepore-Stevens D’20. Dr. Lepore-Stevens is now on the College of Education faculty at Rowan University.
Dr. Foster and Dr. Lepore-Stevens co-directed this year’s camp. Both are certified adapted physical educators (CAPE).
“A lot of our athletes come back to camp as coaches and we’ve had so many students who are now staff. We want to give them that leadership role,” said Dr. Foster. This year, six Camp Abilities athletes served as camp staff, ten camp alumni returned to assist, and 18 of the coaches were current WCU students. Coaches and athletes came from many states: Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Building connections is crucial for the one-on-one coaches and their athletes. This year, the one-on-one coaches tie-dyed white shirts with each athlete and experienced the thrill of a challenge ropes course, all creating and strengthening relationships right away based on trust and encouragement.
“As a professor, it’s important for me to see the change in my college students from day one where they’re super nervous to meet their athlete to realizing how impactful the experience is and how much they learned,” said Dr. Foster. “The last day, after the athletes leave, we do a reflection and it’s kind of what fuels me to keep doing this. … It’s really emotional and the students realize how important it is to be their advocate — even for just one student with vision loss — and say, ‘Yes, you can.’”
An associate professor and graduate coordinator within the secondary education and K12 health and physical education department, Dr. Foster is West Chester University’s APA/E program coordinator and graduate coordinator of the APE graduate certificate program, and the director of the adapted physical activity minor. She is a member of the Pennsylvania Deaf-Blind Advisory Committee and a special advisor for the Pennsylvania Partnership for the Deafblind. She is the research chair for the National Consortium for Physical Education for Individuals with Disabilities. In addition, Dr. Foster has been involved with various adapted sport organizations and disability organizations promoting physical activities, fitness, adapted sports, and aquatics for all individuals with disabilities.