By Ben Orcutt -- Daily Staff Writer

FRONT ROYAL — Nine-year-old Damiyan Chavis of Chesterfield County beat his African drum as enthusiastically as any other child would on a warm summer day.

Focusing on instructions from mentor Malcolm Brewster, Damiyan took a little break to talk about his experience this week at Camp Fantastic at the Northern Virginia 4-H Educational Center, just south of Front Royal.

Like most of the 96 children from all over the mid-Atlantic area who have come to attend the 26th edition of Camp Fantastic, you cannot tell that Damiyan has cancer.

And that's the idea for the annual week in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains for cancer-stricken youths from 7 to 17. A rising fourth-grader at Chalkley Elementary School, Damiyan said his favorite activity this week has been canoeing.

Next to Damiyan in the drum circle was 8-year-old Jordan Sandy of Fort Washington, Md. Like Damiyan, this was Jordan's first year at Camp Fantastic, and although on the shy side, Jordan appeared to be enjoying himself.

Some of the youngsters who attend the camp will become life-long friends. When asked if he and Jordan have established that kind of bond, an upbeat Damiyan replied, "Maybe. I don't know."

Like his drumming, Damiyan didn't lose his composure or miss a beat when asked how he keeps from being depressed about his cancer.

"I just pray," Damiyan said.

A former Camp Fantastic camper himself, with his cancer in remission, Brewster, 21, is in his sixth year teaching drumming at the camp. His reward, he said, is that he is perhaps encouraging the youths "to become better musicians themselves."

"I had cancer myself," Brewster said. "I know when I had cancer I wanted to be treated as a normal child [with] respect and I treat them with that same respect. They're children first, and they have cancer second."

David Smith, chief executive officer of Special Love Inc., the Bethesda, Md.-based nonprofit sponsor of Camp Fantastic, said Friday that the African drums, called djembes, were provided by the Winchester Rotary Club.

Smith said most of the children who attend the annual camp come from Maryland, Virginia and Washington. While he and a few others are paid staffers, Smith said everyone else associated with Camp Fantastic is a volunteer.

As the volunteers will attest, the purpose of the camp is to lift the spirits of the participants and to instill a sense of empowerment.

Camp Fantastic has done just that for 16-year-old D.J. Conti, who will enroll in the 11th grade this year at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach.

When Conti was 5, cancer forced doctors to amputate his left leg. Three years of being a camper at Camp Fantastic gave Conti the desire to become a counselor this year.

"I loved it," Conti said of his experience as a camper, noting that he was allowed to do things that most people may have felt he was incapable of doing.

Free of cancer, Conti aspires to either go to medical school and study to become a doctor or to venture into the field of architecture.

Conti said he enjoys his role as a counselor because it affords him the opportunity to give back to the camp and help inspire others to live their lives to the fullest.

His message to the campers to take their place in world, Conti said, is to, "Just go out there and do it and show them you can do anything everyone else can."

And the beat goes on.

* Contact Ben Orcutt at borcutt@nvdaily.com