Can I Vote by Absentee Ballot if I’m the Caregiver of a Child with a Health Condition?

[Laughter]

[Haltingly] Ok. Sure. [More laughter]

Right.

Well, the way I’ve gotten involved in most of these organizations has been through my fundraising experiences. All non-profits look for people who either can give a lot of money or can raise a lot of money. In my case, it’s a little of both. I began my fundraising involvement when I was asked to come back to my high school, Phillips Andover Academy. 

Back in 1959, Andover was having a capital campaign to build additional buildings and to create scholarship funds. The headmaster did not want to use professional fundraisers to interact with the alumni. They decided to recruit an alumnus of the school, and I was asked to come back in that capacity. 

Andover had made a huge difference in my life. So I delayed going to law school. I was just coming back from having served in China on a Yale in China fellowship where I was teaching English at a Chinese college for two years. I delayed law school for a year and went to work for Andover in the fundraising department in their alumni office.

I traveled all over the country organizing alumni, and setting them up to raise money among the other alumni who lived in that city or area of the country. 

Once I got that reputation of knowing something about fundraising, I was recruited by a lot of other people who invited me to join boards and fundraise for them.

That’s pretty much the same story. An acquaintance, who knew me and knew my background in fundraising, also knew Paul Newman. It was entirely Paul’s idea to start a camp for this underserved population of children. But Newman had never had any background or experience in raising money. Although he had the idea, there was no model for what he wanted to accomplish, specifically serving very ill children in a summer camp setting. 

Paul was being told that probably parents would not let their sick children attend a sleep away camp. They feared that going to camp and doing all these fun and wild and crazy things might be too much for children who have life threatening diseases. But Paul was undeterred and he was convinced that if he built the right camp and he had the right staff, we might be able to serve these children in a way that would be very beneficial to them. 

As Paul did not have previous experience in fundraising, he was struggling to launch the campaign so I agreed to meet with him. 

It’s sort of a funny story. I don’t know how long of detail you want to get into.

Every detail?

I received an invitation from the governor of Connecticut who had invited some Connecticut businessmen to come to Newman’s barn to hear what he had to say about his idea of building a camp and to help him raise the money. But I thought it was just a casual invitation. It was a Saturday morning. I thought, ok, you know, it’s a casual event. So I just put on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. 

As I arrived, the governor was greeting the representatives of all these companies, most of whom were dressed appropriately for the occasion in suits. 

I explained to the governor that I obviously misread the invitation. 

Being a good politician, he said - Don’t worry about it, go and get yourself something to drink. 

They had set up a little bar for cold drinks. I went in and ordered myself a Pellegrino. As I was waiting for my drink, I heard somebody coming from behind me saying, “Thank God for the way you're dressed.” 

I turned around. It was Paul Newman.

Paul Newman was standing there also in jeans and a tee shirt.

He said - Gee, I feel so out of place here. I see all these business guys coming in suits. I saw you walk in in jeans and a tee shirt and I thought: I could relate to that guy.

He came over to say hello to me. And then he said - I’m so sorry but I’m so nervous. 

I said - Why are you nervous? We’re supposed to be nervous about meeting you. 

He said - But I’ve never done this before. I’ve never talked to people about raising money for a cause. And I don’t know how I will do. I wonder if you would be willing to stay for a few minutes after everybody leaves and tell me how I did.

I was happy to do that. 

The governor called the meeting to order. He introduced Newman who said - I’ve got this idea. It might be a crazy idea. I don’t know where I’m going to build this camp. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost. I don’t know if the kids are even going to show up. 

I was looking around the room. I could see all these businessmen likely thinking, boy, I can’t wait to get home and tell my wife I met Paul Newman. But I can’t wait to get out of here because it’s going to be a disaster. 

There were no questions after his comments. The governor wished him luck and everyone said good-bye. 

Newman came over to me and said - How did I do? How did I do? 

I said - You were terrible.

He said - Why? 

I said - You can’t get up in front of a bunch of businessmen and not have a plan and not know how much it’s going to cost. You need to add much more substance to your presentation. 

He looked at his watch. It was lunchtime. He said - What are you doing for lunch? 

I said - I’m free. 

We went out to lunch and that was the beginning of our collaboration and our beautiful friendship.

He asked me if I would join the Board, which I agreed to do. And he asked if I would chair the campaign to raise the money to build the camp, which I also agreed to do. 

After we built the camp in Ashford, Connecticut and saw that it was successful, we began receiving inquiries from people interested in following our model in their states or countries. We spent the next twenty-five years traveling around the world helping others to build similar camps. 

It really was. He had a lot of people talk to him about the fact that he won an Academy Award and won race car championships and what have you. But he always said to anybody who said that - This place, meaning the Hole in the Wall, is what I’m the most proud of.

He loved being there. Part of it, I think, was that he wasn’t treated as a celebrity while he was there.

And when he was with the general public, it was always - Oh my God, can we take a picture? Can we have your autograph? 

But at the camp, the kids didn’t even know, for the most part, who Paul Newman was. And he loved that. Because he didn’t really want to focus on his movies and his fame. He just loved the fact that these kids responded to having a fabulous place to go for a week. 

I must say that the idea at the time - and this is now forty years ago - was just to give these kids a good time for a week. What none of us realized was the incredible and lasting benefit that the camp experience would have on these children and their families.  

One of the things that we’ve learned over the forty years that we’ve been in this business, and we learned quite quickly, is that when a child is as ill as the children we serve, it affects not only the child, but the entire family.

We began expanding our programs, not just for the child, but for the entire family. 

We’re building another camp at the moment in Maryland for the mid-Atlantic region which is one of the few areas of the whole country that does not have a camp. 

There was really an explosion of interest after this model worked. Doctors and families realized the positive benefit that these kids were getting from this camp experience. They were not just having a good time, but they were experiencing positive health benefits as well. 

Our first camp doctor, Howard Pearson, gave legitimacy to the camp through his recognized accomplishments and status at Yale New Haven Hospital. 

He started receiving calls from the pediatricians who observed the children returning from camp and noted their improved physical and emotional wellbeing.

So we realized something more than having a good time was happening. 

We also heard from the families of these children saying - What did you do to my child? He or she would go to school and come right home because they didn’t want to be involved with other kids. They were ashamed of having lost their hair or having lost a limb. After the child went to camp for a week, he or she now wants to join every committee of the school, every activity.

Something was really happening to these children beyond just having a good time for a week. 

It is life changing. But what it also shows is how incredibly difficult it is to have a child with these kinds of serious illnesses. 

And coming to your subject matter today is the fact that any help that these families can get in terms of understanding how to register, how to vote, would be incredibly helpful. 

They are so preoccupied with administering the medication, getting the doctors’ appointments, doing all the things that are involved in taking care of a sick child that to make any other aspect of their life easier - especially one as important as voting - is a tremendous service to these caregivers -

- And to the country they live in.
 

Those states should be ashamed of themselves. They should change their laws. But it’s not enough to make it legal [to vote by absentee ballot]. You’ve really got to make sure the parents know that they can do that.

Because, again, it’s not only the time consuming aspect of having a sick child. It’s that you’re so focused on that illness, you don’t have time to do a lot of things that other people do.

In thinking about ‘what do I have to do today, what do I do tomorrow,’ your to-do list is usually more than full. So the extent that any organization can help, even in the states that it’s legal to do it, to make sure they understand that and know how to do it, I think would be very important.

You gotta get out the word as well as the vote. That's a very good slogan.

I’ve had four children myself, one of them had some serious illnesses, not life threatening, but still very serious when she was young. So I had some personal experience as well with that. 

It wasn’t really until I volunteered at the camp - we used not only permanent staff, but volunteers to augment our permanent staff - and lived with them in a cabin for a week that I saw the daily grind that they go through. And the amount of help that they need to get through that daily grind. So that action - participating as a counselor - was very helpful for me to understand.

And then we have events during the year. Some of them are fundraising events, some of them are just events where we invite back families. Like at Christmas time for Christmas parties. I literally have parents come up to me and say - Thank God. Thank you for keeping my child alive.

When you have somebody telling you that, boy, does that make an impact on you in terms of realizing how serious what you’re doing is. And how positive it is in their lives as well as your own.

Exactly.

Yup.

Yeah.

Yeah. You can’t leave a child. Most children that have a life threatening disease, you can’t leave them alone. You can’t leave and say I’ll be back in a half hour.

First of all, you don’t know that you’re going to be back in half an hour because in a lot of voting areas you wait for a little time before you vote. So even that is not possible in some cases. 

The other thing - just to add to what I was saying about “thank you for keeping my child alive” - is that I also met parents whose child has passed away. And I’ve asked them - It’s interesting that you’ve come back; why is that? 

They’ve said without issue we’re back here because this is where our child was the happiest in their lives.

That is also very impactful. These parents care so much about these children. 

The children need that care. And so anything anybody can do - any organization can do - to help them practice their right to vote is just an extraordinary thing. So what you’re doing is great. 

Really good.

I would say, you know, even though it can be inconvenient, even though it may take you a little time, even though there’s a lot of other things on your plate that you would deem more important - namely the health of your child - please consider voting as one of the more important things you can do. 

Because so much of your child’s illness, and the care of that child, is also dependent on government support, whether it’s state government or federal government. And so that also depends on who you’re voting for, who you’re hoping will be in a position to understand what your needs are. 

Corporations get subsidies. Millionaires get subsidies. People who buy real estate get subsidies. People who are dealing with life threatening diseases should get any help they need to practice their right as citizens to vote. 

Anything that this organization can do to help that is extremely important.