One big tent: At Camp Maple Leaf, being different is what helps you fit in
The Globe and Mail — August 2025
Words by Dave McGinn
Verona Scorsone-Jung and her new best friend are jumping off the dock at their summer camp, swimming to the ladder and doing it all over again in a continuous loop of carefree summer fun.
Then there’s a pause, because 10-year-old Verona wants to explain a few things about having Tourette syndrome.
She has tics. They show up in different ways. Sometimes, she raises her shoulders up to her neck. Other times, she scrunches her face up and opens her mouth. She often tries to suppress her tics at school but it doesn’t feel good.
“It kind of makes your entire body tense up,” she says. Sometimes when she’s out at the mall or other places people stare. They don’t understand. They think it’s weird. She wants them to know it’s just something she has to do.
The kids at school are pretty supportive, she says, but it’s nothing like being at this summer camp.
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