Camp Alphie gears up for Pickleball tournament

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — Camp Alphie is a non-profit organization that brings a summer camp to local children who are battling a cancer diagnosis. The camp allows cancer diagnosed children to bond with other children in a similar situation.

“The whole idea behind Camp Alphie is for kids to just play with other kids who’ve had cancer, been through similar experiences as them, and just to kind of be able to heal from from this, you know, horrible disease,” said Camp Alphie board member Montana O’Dell. “So it’s just really putting kids that have cancer in position with other kids who have survived cancer, and just to play be kids.”

Today the organization was at the Tascosa Golf Club to give their campers a chance to enjoy Pickleball.

“September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and so we just put on an event today for the kids to come out here at Tascosa Golf Club just to play pickleball because we’re exposing the kids to pickleball,” said O’Dell. “And we’re also going to have a pickleball tournament on Oct. 19.”

O’Dell was once a camper at Camp Alphie and knows firsthand the benefit that this camp brings to children battling cancer.

“So honestly, when I was, in 98 I was just a kid that just going through chemotherapy, bald, and my mom dropped me off there at camp. I was just around a bunch of other kids who had cancer or survived cancer, and it just gave me the willpower, it gave me the determination, it gave me the motivation that when I left camp to keep on fighting because one day I want to be like those older kids that survived it, right,” said O’Dell. “And so kids, you know, they don’t think like us as adults. You know, they don’t have this level of cognition that we have. They just need to play.”

Lucy Hernandez is the Vice President of Camp Alphie but her journey with the camp first began with her daughter who was battling Leukemia.

“My daughter loved every minute of camp. Actually, in the middle of the camp, she had to go to a hospital to get chemo. I remember I showed up at the hospital. She’s like, What are you doing here? She’s like, Mom, I’m going back tonight. We’re having a dance. And she wears a wig, and they curl her hair and they put makeup on her,” said Hernandez. “So she got this really beautiful dress, and she loved every minute of it, you know, also my older kids, they make friends with all their siblings. They were going through the same thing because cancer doesn’t just affect the kid with cancer, it affects the whole family.”

Hernandez said that her daughter did pass away after being part of the camp for a year, but Hernandez that now working with the camp she gets to see her daughter in each of the children.

“It’s just when you see these kids just having fun, just to think that they’re trying to forget about the hospital stays. And you know, sometimes they get a little weak, they get dizzy, they start not feeling so great,” Henandez added. “You know, just by comforting them, by hugging them, but being there for them, I feel like I can give that love to my daughter again.”

For more information on the nonprofit and how to sign up for the Pickleball Tournament, you can follow them here.

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