Youth with special needs become superheroes at a Lemont camp

LEMONT – When one teen temporarily shed his wheelchair for superhero flying powers, he wanted to sing the R. Kelly song, “I Believe I Can Fly.”

To watch students who are confined to wheelchairs soar across a stage was powerful.

So said Sandy Doebert, president of Little Mountain Community Theatre in Lemont, former superintendent of Lemont High School District 210 and co-coordinator of Super Hero Camp, a one-week program for students with disabilities that provides them five magical days.

“A lot of parents really saw their kids blossom in that environment and have a lot of enjoyment,” said Joe Knutte of Homer Glen.

Knutte’s son, Thomas Knutte, 13, who has Down syndrome, attended Super Hero Camp last year, the first year camp was offered, as Iron Man, and then again this year as Thor.

Thomas thoroughly enjoyed camp, Knutte said.

“He’d come home and talk about his day,” Knutte said.

Knutte also is a board member at Little Mountain Community Theatre, mostly because of its commitment to being one of the partners for the Super Hero Camp, held at the Performing Arts Center at Lemont High School.

“I wanted to reach out to a community of people not exposed to something like that,” Knutte said.

At Super Hero Camp, the 25 campers participated in different workshops and stations, Doebert said. Sketch artists drew each camper’s superhero concept. Make-up artists transformed the campers.

They learned combat techniques – how to fight with lightsabers like a Jedi Knight – from stage combat artists. They watched the antics of real stuntmen from Midwest Stunts. They recorded a music video, Doebert said.

Representatives from Lemont Police Department and Lemont Fire Protection District visited camp, talked about their roles as real superheroes and shared ways the campers could be heroes in their daily lives, Doebert said.

Finally, with the help of Hall Associates Flying Effects, the campers “flew.”

“The students were visibly impacted,” Doebert said. “This wasn’t their regular lives.”

Doebert said the discussions about offering a Super Hero Camp began when she and Heather Hutchison, who partnered with Doebert, first laid the foundation for a community theater.

In college, before Doebert studied education, she was a musical theater major and wanted to return to the stage in some way when she retired, but in a way that would engage people of all abilities.

So she reached out to Hutchison, who has a son with autism and knew the importance of involving special needs youth in the arts.

Hutchison also had previously been hired to direct three musical theater productions at Lemont High School, including “Peter Pan,” Doebert added, and had brought in Hall Associates Flying Effects to assist with flight scenes.

In addition, Doebert said, Hutchison is the director of programming at Artful IMPACT!, a nonprofit organization that offers creative experiences for people of all ages and abilities in the Chicago area, and had the experience and artistic contacts to make a Super Hero camp a reality.

“She’s an amazing individual,” Doebert said of Hutchison. “She’s the genius behind [Super Hero Camp] and has the energy to make it happen.”

In the midst of the excitement of becoming superheroes, and improving confidence and body control, Super Hero Camp grounds the campers in one very important and universal skill.

“Socialization is one of the major focuses,” Doebert said. “On the first day, students come in overwhelmed. There’s a lot of people and they feel a little bit intimidated. By the second day, they’ve made new friends and by the fifth day, they’re crying because camp is over.”

To facilitate socialization, Ellie Schober of Downers Grove coordinated the volunteers, including those that led groups of students to the various Super Hero stations or worked one-on-one with students that required more attention.

“[The volunteers] got to be their friend and buddy along the way,” Schober said.

Another volunteer, Nancy Sullivan of Lemont, a mental health nurse, remained on-site in case any of the campers needed medical assistance. One older girl needed to be fed and toileted, which Sullivan also provided for her. Sullivan plans to volunteer again.

“It was one of the best things I ever did,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said she felt good about giving parents a three-hour break each day and for playing a part in an unforgettable experience for the campers.

“They were so engaged and made friends,” Sullivan said, “just like any kid that goes away to camp.”