My Nonprofit Reviews
Lucinda
Review for The Next Step Fund, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA
My work in the field of comprehensive cancer control planning has made me realize how often there is a gap between pediatirc and adult care and services for pediatric cancer survivors. When I tell people there is an organization that recognizes those needs and exists to do something about, they are surprised and thrilled.
The services provided by Next Step are vital. Good luck and keep up the good work.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
seeing needs of teenage campers
If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...
Provide more opportunities for their work to be replicated.
Review for Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, New Haven, CT, USA
After a week of the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a volunteer cabin counselor understands a new world view, a new language and a code of conduct: There are only 3 principles to run your week—safety, respect and love, and the kids really do believe in them. There are only 3 rules, No physical violence, no killer statements, and no unsupervised activities, and if they were followed in the world we’d all live in Utopia. But there is a fourth rule—have fun. It’s an impossible rule not to follow. You will never in your life ever see so many people putting so much energy and talent and creativity and hard work into hard playing. You usually don’t notice the hard work part. You notice that when someone mentions what or how much they make, it doesn’t refer to income but the volume of crafts and woodshop projects created. You realize that the only colors that really matter in this world are unit colors: purple and blue and red and green and yellow and if you mention one, a loud cheer with complicated rhythms executed in perfect synchrony might very well ensue. You wonder why clowns don’t help out in our lives everyday. Things would work out so much better. You learn that you can get really tired and not much sleep and still just thrive! Each day of the week has a name but it’s not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but Fun Day, Stage Night Day, Party Night Day. Camp is the only place other than a Broadway musical where singing and dancing can break out at any time. The most important meeting of the day is when everyone is in bed and a candle is burning and it’s time for cabin chat. Overnight transformations of places you were in only hours ago occur regularly. Where did that gorilla come from? Was that totem pole there yesterday? People transform too. Random acts of kindness are performed by super secret agents. That there is true goodness in the world and it is possible to spread it around . Every risk you might take to be better, stronger, kinder, more artistic is not so scary with a lot of help from your friends. That homesickness is never as hard to deal with as sadness about leaving camp. It’s a good world to understand.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
watching the way children realize they are not alone facing their illnesses. It is like a great weight dropping from their shoulders.
If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...
hire more year round staff, so the camp magic could reach even more children and families in the non-summer months.
Would you volunteer for this group again?
Definitely
For the time you spent, how much of an impact did you feel your work or activity had?
Life-changing
Did the organization use your time wisely?
Very Well
Would you recommend this group to a friend?
Definitely
When was your last experience with this nonprofit?
2010
