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How Family Camp Day Creates Space for Childhood During Cancer Treatment
For children living with cancer, some of the most meaningful moments can be the simplest ones: playing with family, making a memory, and having the chance to simply be a kid. Long hospital stays and ongoing treatment disrupt ordinary life. Days that might once have been filled with school, games, family outings, and time with…
How Camp Changes Everything for Children Living with Cancer: Aoibhe’s Story
For Aoibhe, camp helped her rebuild something cancer that had changed during cancer treatment: confidence in herself and what she could do. When Illness Changes How You See Yourself By the time Aoibhe came to Barretstown, our SeriousFun camp in Ireland, cancer treatment had changed more than her routines. She was using a wheelchair and…
How Camp Helps Children with Cancer and Their Families: Conor’s Story
For families living through childhood cancer, a medically supported camp experience can create something treatment often takes away: time to simply be together. When Childhood Cancer Changes Everything For Conor’s family, childhood cancer arrived without warning. A routine school eye test led to the discovery that Conor had a brain tumor. He had shown no…
How Camp Helps Children with Cancer | Harry’s Story
For a child like Harry, living with cancer, camp became more than a place to try new things. It became a place where he could take part, connect with other kids, and know that he belonged. When Childhood Changes Overnight Harry was six years old when his family learned that he had a brain tumor…
For Nolan, Camp Means Freedom
Living With Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) For a child living with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), specialized medical support at camp created something Nolan had been waiting for: freedom. Nolan has lived with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) for nearly as long as he can remember. Diagnosed shortly after his first birthday, much of his childhood involved symptoms to manage,…
Where Liloo is Free to Be 16
“We are outside, there are nurses who are there to monitor just in case. We are free, we are peaceful. I don’t think about the illness, about things like that. My heart is more at peace.” ~ Liloo Growing Up With Short Bowel Syndrome From the moment Liloo arrived at L’ENVOL, our SeriousFun camp in…
Alice Discovered She Could Do More Than She Ever Imagined
Living With Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood For Alice, finding places where she could participate fully hasn’t always been easy. She lives with alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC), a rare neurological condition that can cause unpredictable episodes of partial or complete paralysis. During these episodes, she may temporarily lose the ability to move, speak, or feed…
Gavin Found His Purpose at Camp
“Camp has not only given me confidence and happiness as a kid, but also purpose as an adult.” ~ Gavin Everyone in the SeriousFun community knows camp is a place where kids discover what’s possible. But sometimes, it’s also where they discover what they’re meant to do. Living With LAMA2 Related Congenital Muscular Dystrophy As…
Camp Changes Everything. Newman’s Own Foundation helps make it possible.
Newman’s Own Foundation, which uses all the profits and royalties it receives from the sale of Newman’s Own products for its mission, is delighted to commit over $3M in grants in 2026 to SeriousFun Children’s Network. “A lot of these kids spend six, seven, eight months in the hospital and for them to come up…
Finding Confidence and Belonging While Living with NF1
Living with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) For much of her childhood, Olive’s life was shaped by the uncertainty of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a neurological condition which causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body, for which there is no cure. By age 10, she had already undergone dozens of MRIs, alongside ongoing medical appointments and care. Living with low muscle…
How Camp Changes Everything for Children Living with Epilepsy: Lucas’s Story
For children living with epilepsy, camp can become the first place they realize they are not alone. When You’re the Only Kid You Know with Epilepsy For many children living with neurological conditions like epilepsy, isolation can become part of everyday life. After a diagnosis, experiences other kids move through without a second thought can…
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. and SeriousFun | Celebrating 10 Years of Advancing Children’s Mental Health Together
How the Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Mental Health & Wellness Grant Program is Expanding Support Across SeriousFun Camps Kids with special healthcare needs experience social isolation, anxiety, and depression at higher rates than their peers. Caring for these kids’ mental, emotional, and social health has long been at the center of our work. For decades, our camps and programs have acted as an antidote to…
Mental Health Camp for Teens | From Isolation to Back in the Classroom
How a SeriousFun Mental Health Camp for Teens Helps Children Reconnect and Return to School Finding the right mental health camp for teens can feel impossible for families navigating anxiety, overwhelm, and disconnection from everyday life. For some children, even stepping into a classroom can feel out of reach. When many of the children arrived…
Mental Health Camp for Teens | Finding Connection and Belonging
How SeriousFun Mental Health Camps for Teens Build Connection and Belonging For many families, finding the right mental health camp for teens can feel impossible. When anxiety, depression, or PTSD take hold, connection often slips away. At camp, that begins to change. Some friendships take years to build. Others happen in an afternoon, when two…
Advancing Character Development: SeriousFun Awarded American Camp Association Grant
SeriousFun Children’s Network is excited to announce that we’ve been selected as a grantee in the American Camp Association’s Character at Camp Grant Program, a competitive national initiative supported by Lilly Endowment Inc. The program is designed to strengthen character development in camp settings and highlight camps as impactful environments for youth growth. In 2025,…