Bereavement camp will offer comfort zone for children

 Just three weeks before she gave birth to her daughter, Madisyn, Melissa Wandall’s husband, Mark, died after his vehicle was hit by a red-light runner.

But even before the 2003 tragedy, Wandall knew about grief: Her sister, Tammy Wolfe, died of cancer when she was 14 after a five-year battle with the disease. Wandall was only 12.

“The day she died, I promised God I would never let anything take me,” Wandall said. “If she could take every bit of what cancer gave her and still have a smile on her face, then there was nothing I couldn’t get through in life. When Mark died, I thought of her.”

She formed the nonprofit, The Mark Wandall Foundation, in 2003, at the same time she advocated for legislation to allow the use of red-light cameras. But the foundation’s purpose was to help children — like her daughter — move through grief.

And thanks to a partnership between The Mark Wandall Foundation and Comfort Zone Camp, a bereavement camp for children, Wandall’s dreams are becoming reality. On Oct. 24 — the 12th anniversary of Mark Wandall’s death — the foundation will host Comfort Zone’s first Florida camp. It happened to be the only date Comfort Zone had available. 

This year’s Comfort Zone Camp will just be one day, but the foundation will host a one-day camp and a three-day camp in 2016.  

Wandall hopes to expand the camp to other locations in Florida, as well.

Each child at the camp is paired with his or her own “big buddy.” Post-camp, children have access to Comfort Zone’s resources, including mental-health counseling.

“One of the hardest things was going back to school after my sister died,” Wandall said. “Nobody knew how to treat me. I had a teacher belittle me in front of the whole class because I didn’t know where North Dakota was. And he said, ‘Just because your sister died, it doesn’t give you an excuse not to know where North Dakota is on the map.’ I couldn’t go back to my parents. They were dealing with their own loss. I didn’t want them to deal with something else.”

Although Madisyn never met her father, she still experienced loss. Following the passage of The Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act in 2010, she  sobbed into her mom’s arms for more than two hours. 

Madisyn attended a Comfort Zone camp in Virginia in 2012, after being on a waitlist for a year and a half. 

Wandall saw immediate changes in Madisyn. She had considered providing camp scholarships but knew with such a long waitlist, it wasn’t the best option. Since then, she has worked to bring a Comfort Zone Camp to Florida.

“My passion for this camp is so kids know they aren’t alone — they aren’t victimized, but empowered,” Wandall said. 

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].