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Women Of Impact: Dorothy Jordan's Clarity And Purpose Still Shining
Twenty five years ago, Dorothy Jordan founded Camp Sunshine, a place where kids get to be kids, not having to be constantly tagged with descriptors like leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, or osteogenic sarcoma.
by Allison Shirreffs
October 23, 2007
It was the summer 1983, and 16-year-old Molly Casey had never been away from home overnight,
much less spent a week at camp.Having been diagnosed with a metastatic form of Ewing's sarcoma, a
rare form of cancer, Casey had lost a leg to the disease and had spent much of her childhood being
sick. Before arriving for a week at Camp Sunshine, a camp for children with cancer, the teenager
went through months of chemotherapy treatment. She was scared.
Casey arrived before the other campers, and one of the fi rst people she met was Dorothy
Jordan, an oncology nurse and the camp's founder. Jordan and Sally Hale, the camp's head nurse who
had helped treat Casey in Atlanta, asked Casey to help them. They were getting things in order
before the rest of the 44 campers arrived. "They made me feel great from the very beginning," Casey
says.
Knowing there are people who survive... A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same in
the 25 years since Camp Sunshine's launch in 1982. Casey, now 40, still goes to camp. Like so many
former Camp Sunshine campers, she takes time away from her job (she's the radiology information
system coordinator at Piedmont Hospital) each summer and returns as a camp counselor. She missed a
few years after her cancer returned in 1997, but she was back as soon as she was able. "It's not so
common now, but the [current] counselors saw a lot of death as kids," she says. "Knowing there are
people who survive, knowing they could grow up and do this, that someone has grown up and done
this, means a lot to these kids."
At the heart of Camp Sunshine is a woman who's managed to stay out of the limelight despite
being married for 26 years to Hamilton Jordan, a politician, attorney and former White House chief
of staff. On site at Camp Twin Lakes in Rutledge, the location of Camp Sunshine, the youthful
50-year old blends in with other camp volunteers, dressed in shorts and a tank top, her ID badge
hanging from her neck. But something about her sets her apart.
There is a luminous quality to Jordan, a presence. Perhaps it comes from her clarity of
purpose. In this world of sickness, a place where life and death battle it out, there is also the
pure joy of kids getting to be kids, not having to be constantly tagged with descriptors like
leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma or osteogenic sarcoma.
In this world, people are separated into those who get it and those who don't. This is
serious business, but creating a place where children with cancer get to be like any other kid for
a week of their life matters. Here nobody cares if they walk with a limp, have a scar, have only
one leg, have to use a wheelchair or have or don't have hair.
"When we set out in 1982, we didn't have a strategic plan," recalls Jordan. "No, in 20 years
we'll do x, y, z. We just knew what we wanted to accomplish. We wanted to give kids with cancer a
normal childhood experience."
In June, representatives of Spa Sydell came by to give campers a "spa day" that consisted of
massages and makeovers. Elsewhere, campers moved from their drum circle on the back deck of the
library to the arts and crafts cabin, where they would create tie-dyed T-shirts. Others were at the
pool.
Some were horseback riding, swimming in the lake or fishing. Others were at the infirmary
where nurses, doctors and lab technicians (all dressed as if they were going on a picnic) took
blood counts, administered chemotherapy and monitored the health and well-being of the kids. Over
the course of two weeks, more than 375 children attended Camp Sunshine.
Jordan spent her childhood in Pennsylvania. The youngest of five, Jordan describes her family
as "tight-knit." Her parents were involved in their community, and they encouraged their children
toward similar roles. At the age of 15, Jordan became a nurse's aide. She majored in physical
education at East Stroudsburg University in northeast Pennsylvania because she wanted to be a
physical therapist. Ultimately, Jordan became a nurse and attended a camp for kids with cystic
fibrosis in the course of collecting data for her master's thesis.
"It was an amazing place," Jordan recalls. The kids came together and had a great time. There
was no need to explain their coughing and hacking. "It clicked. Why not have this for kids with
cancer?" she remembers thinking.
The kids there were safe Not long after, in the summer of 1982, Jordan caught a CBS Sunday
Morning News "On the Road" segment hosted by Charles Kuralt. He was in Denver visiting a camp for
kids with cancer and Jordan thought, "Let's figure out how to do this." She went to the camp in
Colorado, to another in New York, and to one in Chicago. She picked the founders' and directors'
brains. "Everybody had a different spin," she says, "but the most important thing was that the kids
there were safe."
Back in Atlanta, she learned how to write grant requests. She knocked on doors. She raised
money. She convinced parents that she and her fellow nurses and volunteers could take great care of
their kids. She asked Hale to help. "I told her I'd do it for one year. That I'd do it until she
found someone else," says Hale, now Camp Sunshine's executive director. That was 25 years ago. "It
totally changed my life and career path."
Camp Sunshine isn't just a camp for two weeks in the summer. There are recreational programs
offered throughout the year as well as weekend retreats for families, teens and siblings of
children with cancer. Moreover, Camp Sunshine House in Atlanta offers educational and support
programs year round. These events and programs cost the families nothing-funding is via private
foundations, individuals, corporations and the like.
Raising money isn't one of Jordan's favorite pastimes, but that doesn't mean she's not good
at it. Vicki Riedel, a Camp Sunshine board member and mother of Ansley, a former camper who is now
in college, says Jordan's driving force has always been the kids. "It's why Camp Sunshine is so
special among nonprofits. It's stayed blazingly true to its mission from Day One," says Riedel,
executive director of development at Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute. Camp Sunshine
quickly grew beyond the capabilities of a handful of people. Today there's a board, an executive
committee, and, fund-raising events. There's the need to think strategically about growth while
remaining true to the camp's mission. According to Hale and Riedel, Jordan allows others to share
their ideas, and she works hard, in a diplomatic and thoughtful way, to build consensus. "She's
reserved, but she has this focus and passion for things she believes in that makes you sit up and
listen," said Riedel. "She can command the attention of any businessperson at any level."
Living with cancer at work and at home Present her with a challenge and she tackles it. When
her daughter was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, Jordan launched Camp Kudzu, a camp for children
with juvenile diabetes. Her husband has battled cancer on and off since 1983, so for the majority
of her adult life, cancer has met Jordan both at work and at home. Rather than complain, she's
philosophical.
"Being in this environment, in this community, brings intense clarity to your life and to the
meaning of your life and what's important," explains Jordan. "I'm a direct person, and I find it
hard to be around people when things haven't become clear for them."
Asked to describe herself, she thinks for a moment. "I'm a good friend," she says. "A good
mother. Wife. Nurse. Member of the community." When she needs to regain her balance, Jordan spends
time with people she cares about. Her family-Hamilton and their three children-is incredibly
important to her. She likes to travel-the more foreign the culture, the better. She reads, goes to
the gym, heads outside, takes a walk.
If Jordan needs a reminder that she and the countless volunteers and philanthropists who have
spent their time and money to create and nurture Camp Sunshine for the past 25 years have invested
well, she needs only visit. "There's a certain feeling you get when you're here. It's fascinating.
There are all different walks of life. Different interests.
But everybody leaves his or her baggage at the gate," she says. "There's no agenda except to
give these people the time of their lives. All that other stuff is just lifted."
When asked what Camp Sunshine and Dorothy Jordan have meant to her, Molly Casey apologizes
and says, "There are no words," before managing to find them.
"Dorothy is an amazing lady. She's changed so many lives, and she's so humble about it,"
Casey says. "She has no idea. No idea.".
