Paul Center

CONTACT:

39 Concord Road, Box 53
Chelmsford, MA 01824-0053
978-256 - 4396
www.thepaulcenter.org

Warren E. Bouchard, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Formerly Camp Paul for Exceptional Children, The Paul Center was founded in 1967 to provide an educational summer-camp-type experience for children who are mentally, physically, emotionally and behaviorally challenged. From a six-week education camp on donated space, the Center has graduated to a year-round program on its own 16-acre site—10 acres of woodland, with two fishing ponds and a stream—purchased when several families put up their own homes as collateral. The Center could not exist without volunteer support —over 20,000 hours logged each year. It is fully accessible by wheelchair trails built by Eagle Scout candidates; Hanscom Air Force Base engineers have built cabins and levelled two playing fields. Nor could the program exist without generous donations; though many of the 120-135 students in the six-week camp period are subsidized by public funds, those fall short by over $500 per student, and the Center must raise the rest. Nonetheless, no child has ever been refused admission because of a family's inability to pay or the severity of the child's disability. Will you help one or more of these deserving children?

(1999: HUMAN SERVICES: Health and Aging: Disabilities and Children's Disease)