Once a year, Experience Camps gathers staff, volunteers, and supporters for the “State of the Campdom” on Zoom. I kicked off this edition by asking the same question that grounds every board meeting, staff retreat, and conversation at a camp lunch table: “What’s your WHY?”
Here’s Mine
I didn’t grow up going to summer camp. I married into it. My husband, Jon, had been a camper at Camp Manitou in Maine as a kid and eventually came back to run it. It was through him that I discovered the “magic of camp.” Grief wasn’t part of my story yet. But an opportunity arrived in 2008, when a financial crisis upended my career and an email landed from a girls’ grief camp in Maine. “We have grieving girls. They have brothers. Would you build something for them?”
We said yes. I traded my heels for sneakers, and in August 2009, 27 boys and 30 volunteers gathered for one week that changed everything. First campfires, first pudding slides, first sharing circles. That week became the foundation of everything Experience Camps is today, and the first building blocks of my always-evolving “why”.
Why It Matters
Our mission hasn’t changed since: give grieving children experiences that change their lives forever. The need behind that mission has only grown. When we started, the estimate was that 5 million kids in the U.S. would lose a parent or sibling before turning 18. That number is now 6.6 million.
At the same time, support for those kids remains scarce. Families routinely tell us they had no idea where to turn when their person died. And when that support doesn’t materialize, the cost is real. Research and years of camper stories both point to the same issue: grief left unsupported in childhood can negatively impact education, relationships, and mental and physical health for a lifetime.
So we’re doing something about it. We’re reaching grieving kids directly, through in-person programs and digital platforms. We’re improving the ecosystem around them, through adult programs and education. And we’re leading a movement to create belonging for grieving kids everywhere.
Camp By The Numbers
- This summer we’re running 16 one-week camps at 8 locations, opening our newest at Camp Champions in Texas.
- We’ll welcome more than 1,750 campers from 44 states and 5 countries.
- 92% of last year’s eligible campers are returning.
- It takes more than 1,000 staff and volunteers to make it all happen.
- 135 of our volunteers are former campers, kids who grew up in this program and came back to pay it forward to the next generation of campers.
- We’re already building toward our 9th location, opening in Colorado in 2027.
Going Beyond the Bunk
Not every grieving child wants to — or can — come to camp. So we’ve been building new programs to reach kids wherever they are.
- Family Camps have grown to five sessions this year, giving caregivers and kids a shared space to process grief together.
- Meetups bring Experience Camps into local communities in partnership with existing organizations. In Atlanta, for instance, we’ve partnered with Kate’s Club for art events and baseball games that mirror the fun and community we see at camp.
- FTA, our adult grief retreat, continues to expand support “For The Adults”, many of whom are also camp volunteers or caregivers.
- Grief SUCKS (@griefsucksdotcom), a digital and social media platform, was built by and for teens, to find their people and speak their own unique language of grief.
Our Youth Advisory Board (YAB) and Caregiver Advisory Board (CGAB) help shape our program design and thought leadership, so that everything we do is created by and for the grief experts themselves.
Changing the World
This year, we conducted research with grieving teens across the country. Researcher (and ExCamps volunteer), Jess Hoffman, explored the barriers to grief support, surfacing logistical and emotional findings: like a nationwide shortage of mental health providers; a New Jersey teen who relies on public transit and avoids support because it isn’t close by; and a Tennessee teen who described how asking for grief support can feel like “showing weakness” in a culture that tells him to be stronger. That report will shape both our public messaging and program design going forward.
We’re also reaching millions of kids and adults on our social platforms, leaning into irreverent humor that tells grievers they’re not alone. And gracing the stage at SXSW for several years running. This year, that same spirit of amplifying youth voices shaped a new campaign, ‘The Weight They Carry,’ on how grief shows up differently for young men and boys.
Stay tuned. There’s so much more to come.
What It Takes
None of this happens without the engine behind it. Since 2022, we’ve grown revenue 103%, averaging 17% growth a year in a field where 8–10% is considered a good year, and our operating budget has grown from $3.5 million to roughly $8 million.
Our biggest investment is in the humans who show up for these kids. We now have over 35 full-time employees at HQ and hundreds of seasonal staff to run our programs.
I said it on our call, and I’ll say it again here: if you’ve volunteered, donated, or simply shown up for us in any way, you made this all possible. Eighteen years later, it still comes down to the same thing it did with those 27 boys around a campfire in Maine — people who decided their why was worth showing up for.
Childhood carries on.™
