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Causes: Camps, Diseases of Specific Organs, Health, Patient & Family Support, Sports
Mission: Camp Holiday Trails empowers, encourages and educates children with chronic illnesses, their families and healthcare professionals by providing a summer camp and year-round programming aimed at personal growth. Since 1973, our residential camp offers children the chance to ride horses, swim, canoe, and engage in other fun outdoor camp activities in a safe environment where their special health needs are met. Children have diverse diagnoses including arthritis, asthma, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, epilepsy, heart disease, hemophilia, immune disorders - including HIV/AIDS, kidney disease, organ transplants, spina bifida and sickle cell anemia. Camp Holiday Trails is a place where children who live with limitations learn to stretch themselves, where children whose lives depend on doctors and medical treatments explore their independence, and where children who may feel burdened by illness can share their concerns with others who really understand. Although their illnesses keep them from participating in other kinds of camps, at Camp Holiday Trails, one would be hard pressed to distinguish them from any other children ? Camp Holiday Trails celebrates the Camper and not the illness.
Target demographics: Children and Families of Children with special medical needs to attend traditional, rustic summer camp.
Geographic areas served: the Mid-Atlantic Region
Programs: Camp Holiday Trails welcomes up to 70 campers at a time, age 5-17, from all over the U.S. for several one and two-week sessions each summer. Family camps and respite programs are offered year-round and include children age 5+ (and sometimes younger!) Children have diverse diagnoses including arthritis, asthma, cancer, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, epilepsy, heart disease, hemophilia, immune disorders - including HIV/AIDS, kidney disease, organ transplants, spina bifida and sickle cell anemia. CHT is one of a very few camps in the country able to integrate and care for so many different health conditions in one setting. Each child is provided the opportunity to grow and develop through activities such as therapeutic horseback riding, athletics, swimming, challenge course, nature and science, arts and crafts, drama, outdoor adventure, and canoeing. The camper-counselor ratio at Camp Holiday Trails is three-to-one. The 24-hour medical clinic, "Med Korner," is staffed by physicians, nurses and medical students from the University of Virginia and is a center of learning and teaching for staff and campers alike.