Camp Tracey Children's Home
Location
10050 Camp Tracey Road, Glen St. Mary, FL 32040
Website
Accreditation
FACCCA
Children served
boys & girls (13-17)
Mission
"salvaging the lives of youth at risk."
Capacity
52
Police have been called to the facility more than 50 times in the past decade, most often to track down children who ran away. Some of them disappear for several weeks or show up on the other side of the state.
The co-ed program focuses on outdoor work and relies on paddling and other forms of corporal punishment. Children there in recent years say they have been made to “crab walk,” carry two 5-gallon buckets full of dirt, swallow soap and eat the cigarettes they were caught smoking.
DCF has investigated the school 22 times since the 1980s and found evidence of abuse in a third of the cases.
The school’s founder, Pastor Wilford McCormick, declined to be interviewed.
Camp Tracey is a fundamentalist Baptist reform program for boys and girls in Glen St. Mary, Fla.
Zachary Ashby, 17
Chris Hicks, 29
“I was more worried about the physical abuse than the sexual abuse. I could handle the sexual abuse. I could handle it out of fear.”
Hicks was a student from 1998 to 2002 when he alleges he was sodomized by a former staff member mentioned in other lawsuits. He says he has retained an attorney to pursue his own case. “He kind of held me down and told me to be quiet, not to say anything,” he said of the staff member.
Brayan Kostyun, 19
"Well, Camp Tracey isn't perfect. It helped me in becoming a more disciplined man. I ran away a lot because I just didn't want to be there. It wasn't that the place was horrible. It was just that I was too immature to understand what their goal was... Camp Tracey is not a concentration camp."
Before he went to Camp Tracey, Brayan Kostyun said he was a "very rebellious and angry person. I used weed, sex, and music to cope with my problems but it didnt work."
Cody Livingston , 20
“We got sprayed down with a water hose for our shower. They made it very clear that we were not human; we were subhuman pieces of trash.”
Livingston said he was made to swallow liquid soap when he cursed and eat a cigarette when caught smoking. In 2008, when he was caught engaging in sexual activity with other boys, he said he was made to sleep in a mudroom for a week and given a bucket for a toilet.
Sequoyah Ozorowsky, 20
“They wanted to make sure DCF wasn’t manipulating the kids,” he said. “Some people say that there’s people that deserve to go to hell. I wouldn’t wish something like this on anybody.”
Ozorowsky said camp staff placed a video camera in the room when DCF came to ask questions.
Emily Seedor, 22
“I kind of said some bad words. The staff overheard me. I had to eat a tablespoon of beaded soap, liquid... I had to do that twice, two separate times... I had the runs all day.”
Though Emily Seedor said she was punished in ways that "maybe shouldn't have been done" while she was at Camp Tracey between 2006 and 2008, she said she "loved it there."
Philip Ashby
"He is doing great. He has an excellent work ethic, is much, much more respectful. He communicates better and even takes responsibility for things he does -- to some extent. All in all, he is a fairly well-behaved 17-year-old."
Philip Ashby's adopted son was getting suspended from school every day, manipulating people and being defiant. His family tried counseling and other techniques. It seemed like nothing worked. After about three years, he got his son back.
Annual tuition for first year
$8,700
Most of the religious group homes reviewed by the Tampa Bay Times are nonprofit organizations and must file financial information each year with the IRS. The Times collected these public records, which reveal income and expenses and other basic information about each organization. In some cases, the forms could not be found.
Tax information for 2010:
| Gross receipts | $273,603 ($280,523 in prior year) |
| Expenses | $275,588 |
| Net revenue | $-1,985 |
| Net asssets | $365 |
Since the 1980s, the state has responded to a string of allegations regarding the punishment methods used on children. Children repeatedly have alleged they were left with bruises and welts. In more than a third of the 22 cases, credible evidence was found.
DCF abuse or neglect investigations
22
DCF verified cases
2
Maltreatment types reported
- asphyxiation
- beatings
- bizarre punishment
- bruises/welts
- cuts/punctures/bites
- environmental hazards
- excessive corporal punishment
- failure to protect
- inadequate shelter
- inadequate supervision
- inappropriate/excessive isolation
- medical neglect
- mental injury
- physical injury (unspecified)
- sexual molestation
- threatened harm
Wilford McCormick, the fundamentalist pastor of Harvest Baptist Church, started this ministry in 1981 to “salvage the lives of at-risk youth.”
The school was investigated by a grand jury in 1987, which issued a report with concerns about discipline, “inadequate and woefully lacking” medical planning, an absence of a procedure for kids to report abuse and staff’s “clandestine attitudes.” Camp Tracey responded, contending that its procedures were appropriate and citing its accreditation under the religious exemption. “It is Camp Tracey’s right to not be another state run children’s home,” the school’s attorney wrote.
Camp Tracey was the subject of six sex abuse lawsuits for cases that stemmed from allegations against Cedrick McCormick and Arthur Houde in the 1980s and 1990s. The lawsuits were dismissed, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer, because the statute of limitations had passed.
Wilford McCormick
founder, director and pastor
According to school and church websites, Wilford McCormick was born in 1944 and was a married preacher by the age of 17. He describes himself as a very conservative, fundamental Christian. "My heartbeat for life is the work of the Lord. My passion is preaching," writes McCormick on his church's website. Of Camp Tracey Children's Home, he says, "It has been my joy and privilege to work at salvaging the lives of at-risk youth since 1981."
Group home profile last updated: Dec. 7, 2012, 1:49 p.m.