The county's disability camp: Camp Millhouse

Founded 1937 for children with polio; on the Millhouse ground in Greene Township from 1940; in season in 2026

The checklist for this section names a camp in the county's disability record, and the county's record holds exactly one. Camp Millhouse was founded in 1937 as a camp for children with polio — in its first summers, 1938 and 1939, it ran as the Sunshine Camp at the Studebaker Clubhouse and Proving Grounds, sponsored by the St. Joseph County Society for Crippled Children, as the camp's own anniversary history tells it from the South Bend Tribune headlines of 10 July 1938 and 27 June 1939. In 1940 the late Mr. and Mrs. Charles Millhouse donated the camp its permanent ground in Greene Township, ten miles southwest of downtown South Bend — eleven acres of wooded property by the camp's own account, ten acres in a national camp directory's — and the camp has grown from that gift to 44.68 acres, as it gives its present size. As the polio vaccine took hold and the disease receded, the camp remade itself into what it remains: a residential summer camp for children and adults with varying disabilities, drawing its campers from all over the Midwest, the oldest of them in their mid-seventies. It is operated by Camp Millhouse Inc., a nonprofit led by a volunteer board; in its own words, "We are not a United Way agency and do not receive government monies." A new lodge, built at a final cost of $1.64 million, was moved into in June 2023. Diana Breden has been its executive director since January 2014, succeeding her sister, the camp's longtime director, on her death; the camp was in season in the summer of 2026, at 25600 Kelly Road. Mishawaka's share is the county share, stated exactly: the camp is St. Joseph County's, seated on South Bend's side of the county, and Mishawaka's children and adults are within the community it has served since 1937 — no count of Mishawaka campers appears in the record reached, and none is printed.

Sources:

1. Camp Millhouse, "Who We Are" (campmillhouse.org) — founded 1937, the 1940 Millhouse donation of eleven acres in Greene Township, the present 44.68 acres, the volunteer-board operation, "not a United Way agency."
2. Camp Millhouse, anniversary and event materials (its 85th-anniversary account, 2022; the camp's history post of October 2026; its 2025–2026 event pages) — the 1937 polio beginning, the Sunshine Camp summers of 1938–39 under the St. Joseph County Society for Crippled Children, the transition as the vaccine took hold, the new lodge of June 2023 at $1.64 million, the camp in season in 2026.
3. Summer-camp directory listing (summercamp.com) — the donation given as ten acres and the camp at 45 acres, printed against the camp's own figures, not harmonized.
4. HomeTown Living (WSBT) interview with Diana Breden, 2025 — her succession as executive director in 2014 on her sister's death, campers aged seven to seventy-five and over, the camp's address at 25600 Kelly Road.