Greetings camp family!
September may seem like a quiet time in the camping world – camp has just ended, everyone is back to their day-to-day routines of school, work and home life. At Jett Foundation’s Camp Promise, we take September to catch up on (a little) sleep, but also look at the best parts of the summer and ways that we can make next season even better.
Camp Promise 2019 was a transitional year: camp had a new leadership team, a new facility for Camp Promise-East, and more interest in camp than ever. Managing these changes in our program was our top priority and we will continue to look at ways to improve communication for the new year and to continue to work with our facility partners to offer the highest quality experience for our campers.
There are so many amazing moments that we had at camp – all the “firsts,” dances, s’mores, conversations, new friends and seeing old friends – it is hard to highlight just a few of our memories from camp. However, we are proud to say that:
- We accepted 100 campers this past summer – the largest number of campers accepted in camp’s history!
- We served campers as young as 7 and as old as 48!
- Thirty-seven (37) of our campers were new to camp and more than 60 were returning campers.
- We had the help of 146 volunteers at our three camps – with more than 55 percent being new to our camp family.
- We offered NEW activities at every camp including foam parties, an “out of this world” dance, Sasquatch hunting and the Dralla Block Party with adaptive cycling (and rock climbing at Camp Promise-East). We also were able to expand existing activities to all three camps such as Kangaroo court (a staple at Camp Promise-Rockies!) boating, fishing, and archery – to our other camps that did not have it before.
- We had our largest medical teams at camp – we incorporated physical therapists, EMTs, doctors, respiratory therapists and nurses into our camp community, all of whom volunteered their time to be with us.
- We incorporated new training techniques, including weekly training emails, for our volunteers to introduce them to personal care experiences they may have at camp.
We want to thank our volunteers so much for joining us – all the amazing parts of camp are not possible without your commitment and dedication.
Thank you to our donors, especially Avexis, Biogen, Dralla Foundation, and Sarepta Therapeutics, who joined us at camp and provided us with support and in-kind donations to help make magic of camp possible. We also are grateful for many vendors who come out to offer new activities at camp.
Most of all, we want to thank our incredible campers – you make it really easy to come to work and put 100 percent into making camp a highlight of our summer. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Please consider helping us make next year even more terrific by donating to Camp Promise using the button below – every little bit helps!
Happy Fall,
Meghan, Kaitlin and Shannon
