By Tammy Thornton
While some high schoolers spent Presidents’ Day weekend skiing or just enjoying a few days off school, the youth group from St. Peter’s United Methodist Church in Ocean City was busy giving kids the world. Located in Central Florida, Give Kids the World (GKTW) is a non-profit, 84-acre “storybook” resort that provides weeklong, cost-free vacations to children with critical illnesses and their families. They partner with over 250 wish-making organizations to help fulfill their wish trip to Central Florida.
The youth group sent seven high school students and six adults on a missions trip to GKTW where they volunteered their time to help families with very sick children enjoy a week of fun at the park/resort. The team divided up; some helped serve food to the children and their families, while other members of the team helped run the wheelchair-accessible rides such as the carousel. Some of the student volunteers even dressed up for the weekly parade.
Families visiting the resort have suffered much from the critical illnesses of their children. The GKTW organization aims to provide them with a break from hospitals, chemo, and the other realities of their difficult lives. Their efforts are motivated by their tagline “Where Happiness Inspires Hope”. Give Kids The World Village was built to accommodate the special needs of these children. Rides, a mini-golf course, and even the interactive water garden and pool are wheelchair accessible. They want to give the children a happy place where they can enjoy things like ice cream for breakfast and play at a CandyLand playground that is specially adapted so that children with physical limitations can participate.
Founder Henri Landwirth began GKTW in 1986. He wanted to provide families with children with life-threatening illnesses a place to stay and provide everything they needed to make their trip a vacation of a lifetime. Landwirth liked to believe that he was prolonging their lives. He knew how these illnesses robbed them of their childhood. He was a holocaust survivor and spent five years of his childhood in a concentration camp. It gave him great joy to bring a little bit of happiness to sick children and their families. Sadly, he passed away in 2018 at the age of 91, but his legacy lives on. Since 1986, more than 175,000 children and their families have had their dreams fulfilled at the whimsical Give Kids the World Village.
The Village depends on volunteers to cover hundreds of volunteer shifts every day. Groups like the St. Peter’s Church Youth Group in Ocean City have created priceless memories that will stick with them for the rest of their lives. Marissa Miller, a freshman at Mainland Regional High School, said of her time volunteering, “My experience was really cool, the fun of it was seeing all the kids happy and just running around playing with them. Especially hanging out with a family on the last day. It was even more magical than Disney.” The high-school volunteers worked hard during their trip. Most mornings they were up by 6 a.m. to serve breakfast to the families. They also volunteered at a marketplace that provides food for low-income families called United Against Poverty. The group spent three hours organizing and stocking food on the shelves.
It was youth group leader Brittany Pursel’s first trip to GKTW, and she was very impressed by how everything was run. “They do an amazing job and I can’t wait to go back and do more. We learned a lot about what to do next time.”
If you would like to learn more about Give Kids the World, visit their website at: www.gktw.org.
Tammy Thornton is a mom of four, a substitute teacher, and a Sunday school teacher. She is passionate about gardening and cooking, and loves the beach.
