Center gives children canoe trip, hope

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 10, 2009 - Page: 1B

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SPRINGFIELD -- Julian Bond’s wheelchair sat parked Saturday morning near Tickfaw State Park’s boat launch as a canoe bearing the 14-year-old boy and his father slipped quietly through the smooth brown waters of Gum Bayou.

Bond was one of more than 40 disabled children who, along with about 140 family members and another 70 volunteers,  attended the McMains Children’s Developmental Center’s 10th annual canoe trip in the state park.

For the last 55 years, McMains Children’s Developmental Center, which is located in Baton Rouge, has offered a variety of therapies and other services to disabled children from as young as 4 weeks to as old as 18 years of age.

And on Saturday for about four hours, walkers, braces and wheelchairs were forgotten as McMains children rode in canoes equipped with seats modified by physical therapists to accommodate these special voyagers.

Each family spent about 35 minutes gliding down the tree-covered bayou while the children smiled in delight as they saw such things as frogs, a yellow swamp warbler, and the occasional water moccasin slithering through the water.

“We’ve had a wonderful time,” said Derick Bond, Julian’s father. “Julian doesn’t usually get to do the things that other children do, and this also gave him a break from the monotony of being at home.”

But the outing also offered something for the parents, as well.

“It’s nice to be around people who have the same concerns as you do,” Derick Bond said as he took a few moments to talk to Julian. “And it’s also nice to be away from the public, who sometimes focus on Julian out of curiosity.

“Here, a wheelchair is normal and that’s a really nice feeling,” he added.

Julian has cerebral palsy, as do many of the other children and even a few adults on the outing.

The center was started by parents of children with cerebral palsy, said Anne Hindrichs, a social worker at McMains.

“They wanted a central place for their kids to get the services they needed,” she said. “Now we take children with other disabilities.”

For the last 21 years, Janet Ketcham has been at the helm of the center as its executive director.