Jasper Optimists make $5,000 donation to Camp CARE

The Jasper Optimist Club presented the Jasper Parks and Recreation Department with a check for $5,000 at Tuesday’s meeting.

The money is slated to be used for Camp CARE (Campers Are Really Exceptional), an eight-week summer camp program for children and adults with disabilities.

The Optimist Club conducts positive service projects in the community aimed at providing a helping hand to youth. The club chooses a project annually to support in the community and felt the Camp CARE program complimented the Optimist’s own mission of supporting the area youth.

“That’s just wonderful,” parks director Ken Buck said. “It really is.”

According to Kurt Heise, the club president, the group was seeking a program to support in a “big way” and member Holly Brake suggested the Camp CARE program. “I knew the Habig Center had special needs programs and I am an occupational therapist, so, I am always working with adults or children with special needs. It is a cause that is dear to me,” Brake said. “So, we wanted to see that program [Camp CARE] thrive.”

The money is raised through the Optimist Club program, Avenue of Flags. A program in which the Optimist Club places flags in subscribers’ yards five times a year.

It’s probably the biggest thing we have done as a group in a long time,” Hopefully it will help the youth and the citizens in the community. It was a natural fit for us to support this.”