Sally Kamps, a University of Minnesota Occupational Therapy (OT) graduate (class of 1956), attributes two life events to her ongoing work helping people overcome challenges: the experience she gained in the University’s OT program, and the struggles her childhood best friend endured, living with cerebral palsy.
“I used to go to the original Curative Workshop with her for treatments and observed occupational therapy in action and that had a lasting impression on me and influenced my decision about a career choice,” she says.
Sally devoted the earliest part of her occupational therapy career working with psychiatry patients at University Hospital, and then with people recovering from strokes at Methodist Hospital, where she worked closely with a speech therapist. The two started a group called The Communications Center, for stroke patients and their families to better understand the changes in their lives and how to deal with them.
Sally’s retirement from Methodist and the OT profession in 1982, marked, in some ways, an escalation of the kind of thinking she brought to the Communication Center; connecting people who have special needs with services to help them thrive.
She and a minister at Colonial Church started a program called Tapestry which brought special needs and typical high school kids together to promote acceptance, understanding, and inclusion through fun activities. Later, after her husband's death in 2003, Sally was searching for meaning in her life. And again, she partnered with the minister and his wife, who were starting a group for high school special needs kids called Young Life Capernaum. Sally volunteered over the years and still remains on the Board.
Students from the first Beyond Limits group
“When those kids graduated from high school, we could see a need for something more, so we started Beyond Limits, a two-year college program for high functioning special needs kids, to provide a college experience that promotes inclusion, learning life skills, and becoming independent,” she says.. “It’s a wonderful residential program held at Bethany Global University.” Sally still serves on the board of directors and is interested in exploring continued opportunities for the students to maintain independence in group living after they graduate. .
Sally cites the enduring ability of occupation therapy to make a difference in helping peoples’ lives through problem solving. The impact of her childhood friend inspired this decades long commitment, and Sally credits the training she received at the University of Minnesota’s OT program with providing the broad thinking and strategic foundation to sustain it.
Sally’s decades-long devotion to helping people isn’t limited to her volunteer work. For more than 30 years she’s also donated to the University of Minnesota’s Occupational Therapy program. “I hope it would help some students that would need it,” she says. “I’m big on scholarships and I just think it’s important for that program to continue. It’s such an important thing and that’s why I continue to support it.”