VACC Camp: A Life-Changing Camp for Ventilator-Dependent Children Turns 40
If you know me well enough, you know that I’ve been attending VACC Camp for 15 years now. Ever since I was contracted by the good folks at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in 2011 (Miami Children’s back then) to document the camp’s 25th Anniversary. I didn’t know a whole lot about the camp back then, I just knew that being able to document a free week-long overnight camp in Miami for ventilation assisted children and their families (that’s what VACC Camp is in case you were wondering) was something documentary filmmakers dream about. And so it began.
My film on the camp (you can watch it HERE) went on to screen at the 2012 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival to a packed house while also taking home the 3rd Place Prize in the Feature Documentary Category at the 2012 ReelHeART International Film Festival in Toronto. It probably still is the work I’m most proud of and it’s because over the past 15 years that I’ve attended this camp as a volunteer, I’ve seen how this remarkable camp changes lives.
I can write about it all day but this video, produced for the camp by my “alter ego” Dan Perez Films back in 2020, will illustrate the camp far better than any words can. Give it a watch. I’ll wait…
VACC Camp was founded by Dr. Moises Simpser, Director of Pulmonology and Pulmonary Care for Nicklaus Children’s Hospital. Born and raised in México City, México, Simpser attended Medical School at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), México City, where he graduated with honors. At the completion of his residency, he moved to Boston where he did a fellowship in Pediatric Pulmonology at Boston Children’s Hospital (Harvard Medical School.) and afterwards, an extra two years of Pediatrics at Boston City Hospital (Boston University).
An early photograph of Dr. Simpser at VACC Camp
He then moved to the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey where he was the Director of the Pediatric ICU and Pediatric Pulmonology. He was an instructor and then Assistant Professor at UMDNJ. In 1984, he joined Nicklaus Children’s Hospital where he remains Director of the Divisions of Pulmonology and Pulmonary Care. In 1984, he joined Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Simpser’s background includes 10 years personal experience in camp development, organization and personnel training for the Mexican Red Cross. In 1980, he founded the first YMCA asthma camp in Frost Valley, NY, to mainstream severe asthmatics from inner city neighborhoods. In 1984 and 1985, he served as medical director of asthma summer camps sponsored by the American Lung Association of Dade-Monroe Counties.
In 1986 and 1987, the first Ventilation Assisted Children’s Center Camp took place during the summer and operated in collaboration with SKIP of Florida. Carol Montiel, RN was actively involved in the creation of the camp and participated every year thereafter until the year 2002. When the local SKIP chapter dissolved, Dr. Simpser elected to continue camp as offshoot of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Ventilation Assisted Children’s Center (VACC Camp).
In short, he had a soft spot in his heart for a rare population of this world, children with difficulty breathing – especially those children dependent on ventilators to live.
Simpser, who was as passionate and affable a man as I’ve ever met, would often admit that he had as much fun at camp as any of the campers did (and nobody who knew him would argue with that). And after my first year at the camp, I returned the following year (just as a volunteer) with my camera in hand to continue to tell the story of a camp that had affected me so deeply the year prior. Every year since then, I’ve kept coming back. “I’ll just pop in for a day or two”, I’d say – then spend 4-5 days there.
I mean, for one week in Miami, VACC Camp is the happiest place in the world.
Dr. Simpser and I at VACC Camp, 2016
Then came 2016, the camp’s 30th Anniversary. We were all informed on day one that Simpser wouldn’t be attending the camp he loved so much – at least not daily. He’d been diagnosed with a tumor and was advised to avoid excessive contact with people due to a weakened immune system. I know how much it saddened him to not be a part of camp that year. But after a year of treatment (in which VACC Camp was renamed “Dr. Moises Simpser VACC Camp”), he was back at camp in 2017 and enjoyed himself like I’ve never seen a man of 70+ years enjoy himself. It was as if he believed that might be his last year at camp. It would be.
Dr. Simpser passed away from pancreatic cancer on October 10, 2017.
What he created, however, has changed the lives of not only the campers, who get to do rare activities like going to the beach, floating in a pool, and interacting with other ventilator dependent children – but the many young volunteers who participate in the camp every spring break. Many of them (at first) just there to bag a whole mess of necessary volunteer hours. But like me, many of them find themselves returning year after year to a place that for one week is really like no other place.
There’s a lot you can learn from ventilator dependent children – especially for young people.
So, despite Simpser’s passing and the ensuing COVID epidemic (which wiped out two years of camp), VACC Camp, which continues to be held at A.D. Barnes park in Miami, goes on. And now under the direction of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Maria Franco, it continues to enrich the lives of its participants. Which brings us to this past week’s 40th Anniversary.
Yours truly hanging with long-time camper Andrew and my daughter Miranda, who’s been a volunteer at the camp for 12 years
It began like every other year – campers and their families arriving on Saturday for the camp’s first day. And it pretty much went on like every other year I’ve been at camp, a joyful, life-changing experience culminating with a 40th Anniversary reception on Thursday night, the camp’s final night. In between those two days? Well, I’m just gonna let the photographs do the talking…
VACC Camp Turns 40!
Aloha Islanders
The Aloha Islanders have been performing their Polynesian show for the campers for more than 25 years…
Bubble Show at Shake-A-Leg
Shake-A-Leg has been hosting the camp for years, providing boat rides for these special needs campers on beautiful Biscayne Bay (you can watch a video HERE). This year, I took my drone to capture the kids sailing Biscayne Bay. So unlike past years, I didn’t grab any photographs. A new addition to this year’s visit to Shake-A-Leg, however, was the Bubble Show…
Nikki Beach
The camp has been hosted at Nikki Beach for over 30 years and the Miami Beach firefighters have always been there to facilitate the kids’ arrival at the beach…
Pool Day
My favorite day of camp? Pool day. Kids on ventilators taking a dip in the pool (many of them for the first time)? What’s not to love?
SouthSide Stampede Line Dancing
The ladies from Southside Stampede Line Dancing are also regulars at the camp…
Hard Rock Miami (Bayside)
The Hard Rock Cafe at Bayside has been host to VACC Camp for almost 30 years – it’s one of the highlights of the camp…
40th Anniversary Celebration
VACC Camp Medical Director Dr. Maria Franco
Ain’t no party like a VACC Camp party, and the 40th anniversary celebration proved that point yet again. Alas, it was also somewhat of a bittersweet evening as the final party marks the end of another year of camp. The countdown to next year’s camp begins the following day for many of these campers – not to mention the many volunteers. But the week reminds us just how good us human beings can be – that’s worth coming back for, no?
When “Do no Evil” has been understood, Then learn the harder, braver rule, “Do Good.” ~Arthur Guiterman
For more information or to donate to this truly remarkable camp, visit vaccamp.com
