For 17-year-old Nathan Scrivens, the annual Burn Camp is one of the only times each year where he feels completely at ease, when people don’t stare at the scars on his hands and legs and wonder what’s wrong.
Scrivens and more than a dozen other area youths ate breakfast at the Rochester Fire Department firehouse at Allen and Broad streets Thursday morning, then boarded a bus for a week of swimming, games and bonding at the Watson Homestead Conference and Retreat Center in Painted Post, Steuben County.
The annual program is sponsored and paid for by the Finger Lakes Regional Burn Association Inc. It raises money throughout the year and provides equipment and support to the Strong Memorial Hospital Trauma Unit and the Clark Burn Center at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, said association director, Lt. Allyn Borrino, who is also commander of the fire department’s Fire Investigation Unit.
The camp is for children and young adults who have been burned by accident or by abuse.
Scrivens, who has attended the camp for several years, is training this year to be a counselor. He said he plans to help younger kids learn what he has learned: You can be comfortable being yourself.
Ja’Nire Pugh, 9, of Rochester was burned when he was 3 when he spilled hot water on his neck and lower body. “Kids sometimes say things because they don’t know what happened to me,” he said. “At the camp, I’m not scared, I’m not shy.”
The Rochester firefighters’ chapter of the Axemen motorcycle club visits the campers to take them on rides and participate in camp events. The club is planning a charity ride Sept. 19 to raise money for the Burn Association, which will in turn help pay for the camp.
“It’s something near and dear to our hearts,” said firefighter and Axemen member Nick Montana.