Camp Tanager

“Keep your head up. God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers.”

Camp Tanager is a camp that was established for kids that were malnourished.  Campers would stay at camp all summer and they would have plenty of nutritious foods. Staff would track the kid’s health and weight throughout the summer and send them home healthier than ever. Today Camp Tanager has three different programs for the summer. There is a normal program, a diabetes program, and a hemophilia program. The normal program is just like all other summer camps. The diabetes program gives diabetic children a place to go and be with kids just like them. They also get to know more about themselves though others and some lectures, plus they get to do everything that other campers get to do. The hemophilia program allows for kids to not be scared of things that could hurt them. Hemophilia is a blood disorder that makes clotting harder and a slow process. Parents are usually over protective of their kids, which makes sending their child to camp difficult. But at Camp Tanager, the staff works together to help hemophiliacs understand that they don’t have to be afraid of everything, and it’s a place to let them be kids in a very safe environment. Camp Tanager is also free to all kids. With no cost, parents have one less thing to worry about especially because many of these families have medical bills.

I find Camp Tanager to be an amazing place. I have never actually participated in their programs but I got to listen to the director talk about camp and the programs they offer. It was very evident how passionate they are about helping these kids. The fact that they have this camp for kids, that don’t really belong and in many ways could be insecure about themselves, that allows them to come together and get to see that there are others like them out there and they aren’t alone is super cool. Hemophilia is not something that you would find more than once in a class or even a school. Therefore kids may feel like they don’t belong and that they are the only ones and no one else understands them. Getting to meet other kids with the same condition could change their lives.

Wonderful places like Camp Tanager don’t always come around. They are hard to find but when you do find a unique place that is dedicated to a cause, it is amazing. The way that this camp focuses on involvement of kids even if they have an illness that many would say holds them back is truly inspirational.