Help Banchero Disability Partners send their clients to Summer Camp

Banchero clients at summer camp
Photo courtesy Banchero Friends

Banchero Disability Partners is planning to send their clients to Summer Camp for the first time since before COVID. 

Camp begins early next week, and they are seeking community support to ensure all clients can go. While a fundraising campaign earlier this summer was successful in ensuring most clients are going with caregivers. 

However $535 remains to be raised so all clients who wish to go can go. A deadline for camp enrollment fees is approaching.

Opened in 1971 as a home for six developmentally disabled children, Banchero now serves 35 intellectually or developmentally disabled adults, all with diagnosed secondary diagnoses or disabilities.

“We are really fortunate Camp Stand by Me is availing us this opportunity, and our clients are excited about going,” says Carol Salter, Executive Director of Banchero, “but we want to send all who want to go, and we haven’t yet raised enough for everyone. 

"Our community has been fantastic in supporting clients and caregivers, but we didn’t anticipate this opportunity when budgeting for 2023, which is why we are asking for community support.”

Banchero fills a service gap in the community while also offering unique services to equip clients with tools to become more independent in their own apartments. Many agencies with similar missions to Banchero do not specialize in adult services or independent living. 

Special trips, events and opportunities in Shoreline and north Seattle diminished to nearly nothing with the onset of COVID. Emergence from the pandemic and its after-effects has been slow and steady. 

“Summer camp is another step to return to normalcy while also giving our people a chance to have a great summer experience for the first time in four years,” said Mark Johnson, Fundraising Manager.

To support Banchero’s summer camp fundraising drive, visit www.banchero.org/donate or call Mark Johnson, 206-367-7795, ext 106.