One Way Every Day: March 9 - Camp Get-A-Well-A

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

March 9 - Camp Get-A-Well-A

The inspiration to start an in-hospital summer camp for kids first hit Kate Bach Davis in 1998, when she met a sick young girl named Willow. Willow was an angry 8-year-old girl undergoing cancer treatments. She refused to participate in the group activity that volunteer Kate was leading at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.
Willow told Kate, "I want to be at camp, but they MADE me come back to the hospital!" The little girl explained how she missed the swimming, camp crafts, marshmallow roasting, and time spent playing with her new camp friends.

Willow's blood cell counts had dipped to dangerously low levels just 3 days before, so she had been airlifted from camp. Kate knew it wasn't possible for the girl to go back to summer camp, but she vowed to find another solution. It was with that vow that the idea of an In-Hospital Summer Camp was born. Kate met Camp Get-A-Well-A co-founder, JoLanne Hanson, at St. Jude's in the year 2000, and together they developed an outline for the first-of-its-kind sterile summer camp for hospitalized children.

Camp Get-A-Well-A brings a camp experience right inside the hospital, so kids confined to a medical facility can still experience the thrills of summer camp. This in-hospital summer camp in a sterile setting is the first of its kind in the United States. Five-day camps as well as single event or single day "outreach" camps are available. Since 1998, Camp Get-A-Well-A has served over 10,000 kids, benefiting children's hospitals and patients across the country from Philadelphia, PA to Phoenix, AZ.

Volunteers work hand-in-hand with trained hospital personnel to serve as Camp Counselors for a variety of events including indoor campfire sing-a-longs, handmade crafts, tie-dye projects, camp bingo, scavenger hunts and much more!

Camp Get-A-Well-A focuses not only on meeting the physical and medical needs of the kids, but also on meeting their social and emotional needs. Camp Get-A-Well-A serves all children in the hospital at the time of our visit, encompassing a wide range of injuries and illnesses. All family members are also welcome to attend the camps free of charge. They believe healing the spirit can help heal the body, and sometimes the best medicine doesn't come from a bottle... their Camp History proves that.

Read some inspiring Camp Stories.

Get Involved:

Donate to Camp Get-A-Well-A.

Provide requested items from the Wishlist.

Volunteer opportunities with Camp Get-A-Well-A.