I discovered Camp Rainbow Gold just in time to be a camper, junior volunteer, and counselor. I just moved to McCall, Idaho from Cleveland, Ohio as a junior in high school and finished my treatments for bone cancer. Thanks to Dr. Eugenia Chang of St. Luke’s I heard about Camp Rainbow Gold. I always wanted to go to summer camp but something always got in the way so this was my chance to experience a real summer camp for the first time. I’ll be honest, I was terrified in June when I got on the bus to camp. I had no idea what to expect from summer camp, especially a camp for kids who had been through cancer just like me. It ended up being one of the best weeks of my life. I was 17 but genuinely felt like a little kid again making friendship bracelets, playing capture the flag, learning how to do archery, and taking naps in the day (thank goodness for toes up). It was so cool because I met kids who had similar experiences to me. We got to share experiences, and funny stories, and no one cared that I was freshly growing out my hair. I didn’t think Camp Rainbow Gold could get any better until I went again the next year.
The following year I was a junior counselor and went to Sibling Camp. For those of you who don’t know, Sibling Camp is the week for the siblings of cancer patients. That meant that my little sisters, Julia and Isabel, were campers. Getting to experience camp with my little sisters changed our relationship completely and I will always be extremely grateful for that. As a sibling with cancer, I never really thought about how it made my sisters feel and what kind of trauma they experienced. Being with them at camp lets us talk about their experience. I learned how they felt during it all, what was scary, what they loved, and most importantly what funny things happened when I was sick. Let me tell you, a lot of hilarious things happened in my family when I was undergoing my treatments. Having the space where the three of us took the time to listen to each other’s experiences and how they perceived different events made us understand each other better and learn why they felt certain ways. We never would have talked about their experiences if it weren’t for camp. Now we find comfort in talking about everything that happened and can laugh about things that scared us. It also made the three of us best friends, which is just the best.
Now I’ve graduated college, shoutout Camp Rainbow Gold’s scholarship program for helping to support me and my family while I got my degree from Boise State University, and I live in McCall again, ten minutes away from my sisters. We have weekly sister dinners, mountain bike, and climb together, and hang out way too much. Camp Rainbow Gold is partially to blame for helping us strengthen our sisterhood. I still love volunteering at Sibling Camp because I get to see my sisters and every year that we go to camp, we find a new story to tell or learn something new about each other. So, thank you Camp Rainbow Gold for everything you have done for me, my sisters, and my parents. Volunteering at camp and any other activities throughout the year is truly so rewarding because I understand the impact this organization has on not just campers but also anyone involved.