The Woodeden Easter Seals Camp
is located just west of London Ontario on Commissioners Rd.,
between London and Komoka. It is one of just 3 such facilities
located in Ontario.
Chapters 55, 74 and 91 of the Telephone Pioneers of America chose this
site as the location to hold their annual Tri-Chapter Games for the
Physically Disabled. The Games followed a format similar to that in
North Bend State Park in West Virginia.
These games were held from 1990 to 1998 and involved hundreds of
participants from all over Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and the U.S.A.
The Telephone Pioneers assisted greatly with development at Woodeden
over those years. Significant User Fees were involved as the Camp was
leased Labor Day weekend after the camping season concluded. Pioneers
were involved in upgrading accommodations, donated all new bedding and
linens and kitchen items, and donated and built an outdoor pavilion
with stage, a roof, black topped floor and picnic tables – large enough
to accommodate 700 participants. It was named the “Pioneer Pavilion”.
The Pioneer involvement with Woodeden ceased in 1998 but the Camp
continues to serve Handicapped children from Ontario and is used during
the summer period by hundreds of children.
In the last 2-3 years the London TelecomPioneer Club has renewed
contact and involvement with the Woodeden Camp. We assist them with
volunteers to car park, to barbeque, to supervise and to monitor events
and functions. We learned that they have embarked on a major fund
raising drive to modernize, upgrade and expand the facility to increase
the number of participants and to make it a year round facility.
The London Club wanted to be part of this program and we asked how we
could help with the upgrade – in particular we wanted to know if there
was anything that the Pavilion needed to keep pace with the expansion.
They advised us they really could benefit from a Sound System in the
Pavilion. This would allow them to better communicate with the
participants both inside and outside the Pavilion but more importantly,
would enable them to lease the Facility for other functions like
dances, BBQ’s, meetings, etc. thus providing a source of fund raising
on their own.
We committed to providing the Sound System, both the purchase and
installation, ready for the 2007 season. The required hardware has been
priced at ~$3000.00
The London Club has solicited support from both Chapter 100 and the
member clubs. To date we have $1276.00 allotted to the Sound System
Fund contributed by the Chapter. We have partnered with the London Bell
Canada Public Affairs Team to fund raise the remaining monies. They are
working on providing a package of some sort that we could raffle
tickets on (ie: sports seating, event seating, etc.) Our Pioneer Club
would handle the raffle and ticket sales.
The London Club is committed to this Project for its obvious merit.
This Pavilion serves the Camps 1200 annual participants for everything
from meals to actual sports events. Once the Camp expands to year round
service, that number will grow to thousands of Handicapped children. We
want to ensure that the “Pioneer Pavilion” will continue as a modern
and functional facility and provide a focus of activity for these
children for years to come.
