Frequently asked questions about
Freedom Recreational Services...
Q. How would you describe to someone who is not familiar with Freedom Recreational Services what the purpose of your agency is?
A. The best way is to use our full name which is Freedom Recreational Services for Youth with Disabilities. What we do is provide recreational, educational and social activities to youth within the county that have a disability.
Q. How long have you been offering these services in Cayuga County?
A. We have been around as Freedom Recreational Services since 1988, but before 1988 the camp was in operation under the auspices of Easter Seals.
Q. Can you give a summary of the two programs you run, Freedom Camp and Freedom Riders?
A. The camping program is offered while the kids are out of school during the summer at Casey Park in Auburn. Our camp is like any typical summer day camp that you might find at the Y or Girl Scouts, except that we adapt it to fit the disabilities of the children. We adapt games to make them a little easier; we use devices so that they can catch balls or throw balls; we also use floatation devices to make swimming easier and safer and things of this nature. There are two, two week camping sessions each year. This year the first session starts July 7 and the second session starts July 28.
Freedom Riders is our therapeutic riding program. The children go out to Daly's Stables one day a week for lessons. The program starts in late April and we run it for five weeks at a time, then take a two week break before starting another five week session. We run four, five week sessions which takes us to around Halloween.
Q. What is the criteria for eligibility for each program and how many children can you accommodate?
A. The criteria for Freedom Recreational Services is that the child has to have a diagnosed, defined and documented disability. This comes in the form from school as a IEP (Individual Education Program Plan), or a 504 accommodation plan if they are not severely disabled or even a physician documentation of the disability. We accept children into the camping program from 3 years to 21 years of age and in the riding program from 5 years to 21 years of age. In the riding program we can accommodate 18-20 children and the camping program can accept 5O children with disabilities. However, in the camping program, because the children are integrated during the school year, we do integrate the disabled children with non disabled siblings, and we can accommodate 10-12 non disabled siblings in each camping session.
Q. Are there any fees involved with these programs?
A. No, there are not We do charge a fee for a non disabled sibling who attends the camping program, which is $80.00 for the two week session. And we do ask parents to help with our 'in house' agency fund raisers from January to August.
Q. How does a parent enroll a child in one of these programs? Are there any deadlines?
A. A parent should just call our office and we will send them the appropriate application. We accept children, until the program starts or is filled based on a first come first served enrollment.
Q. What is the "Sibshop" program?
A. Sibshop is a special program, that we received a grant to fund and sponsored it in coordination with Neighborhood House.
This particular program is a support group for the non disabled sibling, who in many instances may feel left out or picked on because the disabled child may seem to get more attention. We had eight children in the first sibshops which ran once a month on a Saturday from 8:00 AM-2:00 PM from February to June. We hope to run another sibshop this fall.
