[Michelle] I believe that his recovery would be much longer.

(bright music) One of the things about learning your child is terminally ill is how lonesome it feels.

And when you find your community of people, it's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

(bright music continues) This is home at the hospital, while somebody's inpatient.

(bright music continues) [Announcer] Funding for this program comes from The Caring Foundation by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama with additional support from the Robert R. Meyer Foundation and Hoar Construction.

[Michael] They're not the rich and famous.

Their profit comes not from the thing they sell, but the good they do.

Our nation has more than 1.5 million non-profits that employ one out of 10 Americans, providing services that otherwise go unfulfilled, keeping our community connected when all else fails.

But nonprofits often lack the tools to properly promote themselves, to inspire more donors and volunteers and clients to their cause.

That's where I come in.

I've been in the nonprofit world for nearly 20 years.

I connect nonprofits with marketing professionals who donate their time and expertise so that, at the end of the day, these life-giving organizations can do more, do better by creating more, that's right, "Buzz."

(pleasant music) Parenting can be full of storms, especially if your child requires hospitalization.

For most of us, we're lucky this experience is rare.

But for many Alabama children suffering serious illness or injury, these journeys are part of life.

As the seas of stress crest and fall, families are grateful to find, at least for a little while, a safe harbor.

On today's episode of "Buzz," we're thrilled to share the story of the nonprofit Children's Harbor, both its family center at Children's of Alabama Hospital, an incredible retreat facility at Lake Martin.

At Children's Harbor, our focus is on seriously ill children and their families.

Here at the Family Center, I like to call this the heart of Children's Harbor.

Oh my goodness, because we're here so much and a lot of times have multiple appointments, there's time in between sometimes that we just have nothing else to do.

This has been a refuge and it gives them something to look forward to because going to clinics is not fun.

We try to provide a home away from home experience.

Families can come in and they can just disconnect and partake in as many things as possible that will help alleviate the stress and the burden that comes along with having a child that is in the hospital.

-I loved it.

-It was probably about 15 days when he becomes stable that we wheeled down here.

[Lake] It's fun, I loved it.

It was really a pivotal moment for him because he was very active before and so laying in the bed or not being able to do much of anything for 15 or so days, and then, coming down here, it was almost like a spark.

Christopher was a premature, drug exposed-baby and suffered some issues at at birth.

He's followed by 10 different specialists and just seeing them once or twice a year keeps us busy.

I'm Lake Reed and I'm 13 years old.

I was a patient here for 60 or so days.

Hey, I'm Michelle Reed, I am Lake's mom and we're from Hamilton, Alabama.

I had an AVM, an arterial ventricle malformation, it's a bunch of veins that like burst in my brain.

It left my left side paralyzed.

The first week or so was probably the hardest 'cause I had like two or so surgeries in that week.

He had to learn how to redo totally everything from swallowing to walking to everything.

So it was hard and especially I think I lived off adrenaline for about the first eight days because it was a hit and miss and they said if we can get past the eight days, you know, you can count on going forward, so it was really tough.

Children's Harbor is a very happy place for families who are facing a very not happy time in their life.

They have just been given a diagnosis of a child that's either seriously sick or has a chronic illness that they will live with for the rest of their life.

So we are here to catch them and to be here to support them.

At the Family Center, we offer opportunities for families and their children to receive counseling from very specialized counselors who practice in illness specific circumstances.

We have 10 counselors, who are operating with specialties in EMDR, trauma-informed services, play therapy and general counseling.

Hi, I'm Amber and I'm a counselor here at Children's Harbor.

So I am helping children and also their families with the new diagnosis, such as diabetes, and I know that can be tough for a child who is having to now watch what they eat, just having to change and not be able to eat as much sugar.

And also there can be anxiety that comes with pricking their fingers or receiving injections for their sugars and insulin or being on an insulin pump, for example.

It can cause anxiety and depression because they're trying to create a new normal for themselves.

-And that's what you do.

-Yes.

[Michael] You help them.

I help them, yes.

(chuckles) The dream of Children's Harbor began in 1989 with Ben and Luanne Russell.

They really wanted to give back to the community and help children in need.

So they donated all of the land for Children's Harbor right by Kowaliga.

It actually started as an orphanage and then kind of morphed into what it is today, which is a campsite for children with special needs and with chronic medical conditions.

Children's Harbor is hallowed ground, we hear that from a lot of families when they come.

We've been coming down since the inception, Children's Harbor's phenomenal.

Not a lot of places you can go with three kids, one with disabilities and be able to do all the things.

So it's a wonderful opportunity for that.

(upbeat music) We've had it described as home, it feels very much like home to them.

Just after you come over the Kowaliga Bridge and see the water, they seem to take a deep breath and then they turn into our campus.

(upbeat music continues) [Michael] Though the fun and games at Lake Martin are reserved for families of severely ill children, the Family Center is open to any family who has a medical appointment or hospitalization at Children's of Alabama.

Their vision was to have a place of respite and a place that the families could come and get away from being at the hospital.

Even the way this center is designed, when you walk in here, you don't feel like you're in a hospital, you know, the walls are not sterile, the way it was designed with the waves and the soothing colors.

We have services for children and their families to just get away from everything, have respite services.

We have massage therapy services, hair salon services.

We have general spaces where families can get away from the medical side of what's going on in their lives.

There are families all over Alabama that if your child has to have dialysis, you must come to Children's of Alabama for that treatment.

So there are families in Mobile to Huntsville that wake up three o'clock in the morning and drive all the way to Birmingham for their child to have treatment.

In an instance like that, you could see why having a place to come to just recharge and reflect and think on things before you have to drive back.

So it's not only a long hospital stay, but it's also that outpatient services that they have to have.

It's been a blessing to us, and even for me, like I can remember, I guess, on day 45, I had slept on a couch, which, you know, in the room and Miss Carrie, she set me up for like a 20 minute massage.

Just that right there, you know, helped me get through the next 15 days, you know, just the little things that added up.

Now looking back, I see just the blessings, just one right after another.

[Michael] I'm Michael Emanuel.

I'm Cassie, and this is Eli, Isaiah, Josiah and Caroline.

Caroline was born with a genetic condition called DiGeorge Syndrome or 22q, and so it's sort of similar to Down syndrome.

It affects almost every body system for her.

So she uses a feeding tube and she had open heart surgery at two months old and so she spends a lot of time here.

When we know that we have a scheduled appointment, we usually have to make the entire day all about that appointment because we live so far away and there's so many of us, we have to get up early, we have to pack our lunch and drive and then we're here for appointments, we stay here and eat lunch at Children's Harbor and then we have to drive home in traffic.

So we dedicate the whole day for appointment days.

I would say two main points about Children's Harbor specifically is if we're coming for outpatient therapies or specialist appointments, we don't have to struggle with the kids and tell them we have to go to the doctor today, it's "We get to go to Children's Harbor."

The hospital is just also here.

They are coming to Children's Harbor today, that's the whole conversation, so they get excited, they know they're gonna see our friends who work here, they're gonna play games, they're gonna be goofy and loud, and then we'll take a break and go to an appointment and then we'll come back and wrap up and then go home.

And then, for inpatient stays, whenever Children's Harbor is open, the rest of us are here so that we're nearby, we always do things together as a family, we don't leave people behind if we can help it.

So this is home at the hospital, while somebody's inpatient.

(gentle music) [Jared] You know people, even just friends of ours, they don't understand a life, if you only have neurotypical kids, you don't think about the same things.

They may make plans.

Did you see the duck?

They don't mean to exclude you, but they just do by logistics that they just don't think of.

So it's not their fault, they just have never, it's never crossed their mind.

When Vivi Jean was just three months old, she had some brain damage at birth and had some disabilities.

She's got cerebral palsy and so she's got some physical challenges, she's doing amazing now.

She's got some speech challenges so not everyone can understand her and that leads to a lot of behaviors and a lot of sassiness along the way, not every family has to deal with.

And everyone here understands that our lives are a little different in that sense.

[Michael] Tell me about this place here.

Is this your first time here?

This is our first year here and it's so wonderful 'cause there's so many options and getting together with all of these families that know exactly the life that we live and the challenges that we have and all of the extras in our day to day that other families just don't quite understand.

Everything's accessible and everyone's here to help.

There's not a lot of places you can go with three kids, one with disabilities and be able to do all the things, so it's a wonderful opportunity for that [Michael] To see all that Children's Harbor offers for special needs families at Lake Martin, from its full accessibility, including mini golf and tree house, zero entry pools, dining and housing, golf carts and more, I was given a tour of its 66 acre campus.

So this is the Harbor Lodge pool, again, it's zero entry, this one is way more like a beach would be where it's very, very, very shallow at the shallow end, and then it's only five feet deep.

This is for just this side of campus, so the family camps, and then we've got the accessible playground that is our newest amenity over there.

So it makes it fun for kids and families to be having one parent here playing in the pool and then the other one over there in the pavilion with the other children, maybe they have siblings that are playing over there so they can still be together without having to be too far apart.

[Michael] Yeah.

[Taylor] So this is our mini golf course, again, it's one of those centers to campus shared spaces.

It's got 18 holes.

Something cool about it is it's got night lights.

So at night, if your campers can't be in the heat for too long or if it's just something y'all wanna have fun at night, you can turn on those lights and play mini golf at night.

And they're pretty, pretty bright, I would say, and it's also accessible, -so wheelchairs.

-I was gonna say, -it's totally accessible.

-Yeah, wheelchairs can ride on it, we've had kids play of all different kinds on it and it's so much fun and just a cool thing to have, it feels kind of like you're on vacation because you're going to play mini golf with your family.

This has been amazing for Levi.

He loved the cabin, ut was his first time in a bunk bed, so he slept on the top bunk all last night by himself and he was very excited about that.

He's a part-time wheelchair user, but to have the accessibility for him to play putt-putt is truly amazing, you know, that every single part of this place, he can go to, he can be a part of and, you know, included in everything that other kids his age may be doing on their own.

That's what's nice here is everyone, it's a main consideration in everything that they plan and do, which allows for accessibility for everybody.

[Michael] The impact of this retreat goes far beyond accessible facilities.

For families with a Rhizo kid, it is a true once a year harbor from the frightening, isolating, and ultimately fatal storm they have to navigate with their fragile child.

My name is Tracey Thomas and I am one of the original founders of RhizoKids International.

And the way we got started was, in 2007, our son Jackson was born with Rhizomelic chondrodysplasia punctata, which is why we call it RhizoKids, it's a terminal form of dwarfism.

It's very rare, there are less than 150 children or people living with it in the world, most of them are children 'cause most don't make it to adulthood.

And so, we started looking for resources and we found Dr. Nancy Braverman in Canada.

She was like the world's leading researcher in this disorder.

And we asked her if we could come to Canada and let our boys be seen, and she said, "Absolutely not, I'll come to Alabama."

Our son Jake is 23.

We were told that he would make it to be one, if we were lucky, two.

Once they become the age of eight, they're considered long-term survivors, which is huge.

It's been a very long journey, but an amazing one at that, and it just gives you a whole new perspective of life and it makes you take no like day, no minute, no second for granted.

And so, the doctors said, "We can follow the natural history and the progression of the disease if we can see the kids every summer," so finally our child passed away and it became harder and harder to raise funds.

And so, we found Children's Harbor but just did not think that it was a viable option, and we didn't know if they would let us come or not.

They said, "No, you're welcome here," and that was the beginning of our relationship with Children's Harbor.

Children's Harbor is phenomenal.

We've been coming down since the inception, it's a great opportunity, not only for the Rhizo families, the new people coming in and getting to know, "Hey, we're not the only ones in the world with this," they get to know.

And it's even better for like the siblings, it's like, "Oh, there's other kids that have sisters or brothers that have the disorder."

It's just amazing seeing that growth of everybody, and I think we couldn't do that at other places.

But one of the great things about this camp for us is when we get to come back every summer and be with these families, we are reminded of our child and of our child's memory.

And being with these other children that are so similar to ours, it helps keep his memory alive, that's the big thing for us is that it allows you to continue to keep your child's memory alive, as it does for many of these families that continue to come back.

When you have a child with RCDP, you're very limited in what you can do because most of them are in chairs, so you need ramps everywhere, you need showers that you can roll into.

This facility is totally accessible for that.

So our families can come here and when they're here, their kids are able.

We've been talking throughout the course of the last few summers, how nice it is to see the siblings of our kids running and playing and the camp is safe, and we have volunteers that come and, you know, Children's Harbor's wonderful to do, the Harbor Helpers, the volunteers that are invested in our families that come back year after year, where these families can come and they can relax, their kids can have a great time while they're here.

We could not exist without our volunteers who we call our Harbor Helpers.

We have, you know, seven, 800 of them signed up and all you have to do is is sign up for a two hour shift, it's not a huge commitment, but what they're able to do for us is just amazing.

[Michael] Children's Harbor staff alone can't provide all the fun for retreat families.

As I learned while attending a camp for some friends of mine whom I met while producing a 2024 "Buzz" starring the nonprofit United Ability.

This is our family weekend at Children's Harbor and we have cherished this relationship with Children's Harbor over the last four years.

Our families of children with disabilities that attend our early learning program get to spend a weekend out here together, they get to socialize with one another, they also get quiet time alone as a family.

It's a wonderful respite, everything's accessible for them.

Families that we see, the medical conditions can be quite complex.

We see a lot of homeschooling.

These parents are at home a lot, they are truly isolated, so they may not live a completely social life, like a completely well child would.

So when they come here, it's extra special because they get to come to a place which is amazing.

And then, also, they get to be with people who have children with a like diagnosis and they know that they're understood.

Okay, who's coming on board first?

I'm Nick Cate, I'm one of many volunteer boaters, but they got me involved and it's a labor of love.

[Michael] Why?

Giving back, I've got this boat.

You ready?

My kids don't come to the lake as much as I want 'em to, so why not help others?

We started coming to the lake in the early 2000s, and then, just over the years, we got to know about Children's Harbor and just wanted to get involved, I mean.

[Barbra] All the wonderful things it provides and does, we just wanted to be a part of it.

We've met a lot of awesome people, people that both work here and then people that have come through the camps over the years, and what the Russells have done for a community that really needs an opportunity just to get away is just beautiful and we just wanted to be a part of it.

There's not another place anywhere close to here that families from Alabama could go to.

We do host people from Georgia, Florida, lots of other states, but Alabama families are very special.

We try to give them a five star vacation experience while they're here.

And when you're able to do that at no charge, sometimes they wonder what the catch is, it's hard to believe that it's true.

(lively music) So there's no cost to the families.

It's a wonderful gift from Children's Harbor that they actually provide a grant for United Ability's Hand in Hand program to do this.

And then, you know, United Ability provides all the staff and supplies and things like that.

So RhizoKids International raises money to cover travel for the doctors, food, the basic things we need for camp.

But Children's Harbor's donation through their own fundraising goes to provide the lodging and the facility is amazing.

So they provide over half of what it would cost for us to do this without their support.

[Michael] The five star treatment, at no charge, both at Lake Martin and Children's of Alabama is due to year-round fundraising by Children's Harbor's development team.

In today's world, mental health is just such a need, such a gap.

And with the model that we have, we take out the red tape, we take out the insurance companies and we try to do what's best for each family, right then in that moment.

Families come to us with so many unique needs and those needs are just not clinical or counseling, those are just basic needs that they have that allows them to just manage their families and to just carry out day-to-day life functions.

And so, when you have a child that is in the hospital or a child that their medical health has been significantly compromised, a lot of times parents can't work or they have to take a lot of time off from work and so they just need that assistance.

Last year, we had 41,000 individuals that received services here at the Family Center.

There's no cost to our families or children for any of the services that we provide, but a lot of times, due to the medical illness that's going on in a family, the parents are unable to work and they lose track of their financial responsibilities.

So we're able to provide some assistance in keeping up with their bills while their child is in care.

We provide services not just for bills, but also for siblings or tuition for school, school supplies, services that may be otherwise overlooked.

I'm very passionate about that because that is something that allows us as an organization to kind of step outside of the box when it comes to assisting families.

We can step in and we can alleviate a burden and we can help meet those needs, whereas other organizations might be limited with what they can do, we have more flexibility to help families in a very unique way that doesn't include a lot of red tape and just a lot of steps that other organizations have to take.

Children's Harbor has some wonderful donors, I just wanna talk about a few that are special to us here at the Family Center.

Coach Bruce Pearl, who's the head of basketball coach at Auburn, dedicated the basketball court here, it is a very popular, as you can imagine, with the kids that wanna come here and shoot hoops.

Children's Harbor allowed a lot of different opportunities for him, including being a part of the Birmingham Squadron, which is a G League basketball team here in Birmingham.

He was the 13th man and got to participate.

He had his own locker, his own uniform, he got to sit on the floor with the basketball players.

We also have a claw machine, which is the most popular thing in the hospital, and that was dedicated by David and Beth Marsh.

They support that program each year, each child and family that comes in here gets to take away a Beanie Baby.

And we've had families that have collected them over the years.

I will say that, without here, I think that his recovery would be much longer because you gotta have that internal drive to, you know, help in aiding that.

(joyful music) What'd you do on the boat?

[Levi] I drived it.

One of the things that has been a wonderful outcome for our family in particular is we have someone here with us at camp this year, they come every year, they're fantastic volunteers and they just had a new baby and they surprised us and they named him Jackson.

So there's a lot of fantastic outcomes and a lot of times it pulls at your heartstrings, but there's a lot of wonderful outcomes from camp.

Ooh, the future of Children's Harbor has no bounds.

We've always operated in single sites and had the patients and families come to us.

That's not our model anymore.

Our job is to go to where those families are, wherever they live, learn, and play.

So we are branching out in their communities.

So we started with Children's of Alabama in Birmingham and it's still a wonderful partnership, and now we're branching out to Huntsville with Huntsville Hospital, we're looking at with UAB and their NICU and there's other hospitals across the state that we're hoping to be able to help families there.

If it wasn't for this, they helped me get so much better.

Just coming here, like even my attitude.

And it's not just better like physically, it's just better as a person, just like being nice and kind and share everything.

(joyful music continues) [Michael] To help me produce this "Buzz" on Children's Harbor, I reached out to my good friend John Coley, owner of Lake Martin Voice Realty, who generously donated his drone videography expertise.

John is not only one of the region's best known real estate agents, he's also its biggest influencer through the thousands of followers to his blog, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook channels.

Because, yeah, Children's Harbor, I literally grew up like 200 yards from Children's Harbor and my dad still has a cabin on Lake Martin almost within sight of it.

And so, yeah, I wanted to give back a little bit.

I have a YouTube channel that is linked to my business and also a blog and the related social media stuff.

So what I thought I might do to try to kind of add to the "Buzz," I just wanted to shoot a promo to draw more attention to this incredible thrift shop, push it out on my channels, get the word out 'cause it is an awesome place, not only to donate your items, but to shop.

Hey, there's two ways that we in the Lake Martin community can support Children's Harbor.

One of those is to shop at the Children's Harbor Thrift Store that's right behind me.

It's on Highway 63 near Kowaliga Bridge and it has a thrift shop and it's great items, gently used items from all around the Lake Martin area they come, and every dollar that you spend here supports the ministry of Children's Harbor.

Well, Children's Harbor is near and dear to our hearts around here, around Lake Martin, because it serves seriously ill children and their families, gives them a peaceful spot to come and relax and enjoy each other.

And the other way is to donate items, so whether that's, you know, household items, even boats or watercraft, all kinds of donations are accepted.

So whether you're decluttering, whether you're doing some spring cleaning around your house, please come and consider donating to Children's Harbor because this thrift store is a way that we can all participate in their incredible mission.

Please go to their website and make note of their hours and their times that they accept donations.

That's what makes the Children's Harbor Thrift Store so popular around Lake Martin, so I encourage you to come visit and shop today.

(joyful music continues) (joyful music continues) (joyful music continues)