Experience Camps are no-cost one-week overnight summer camps for grieving children who have lost a parent, sibling or primary caregiver. They empower kids with coping skills to help them move forward with their lives. Lauren Zima, who along with husband Chris Harrison is co-hosting a new show for Dr. Phil McGraw’s Merit Street Media, lost her dad in 2010 when she was 22-years-old, a devastating loss she’s shared publicly on social media. On one of these occasions Lauren told Austin Lifestyle a woman reached out and told her about ExCamps. That was May 2023. Today ExCamps has become a significant part of Lauren’s life.
“It felt like the cause I'd been looking for,” she says. “I'd always wanted a way to honor my dad, but hadn't found the right organization. This felt perfect because the hardest thing about losing my dad was how young my siblings and I were; our youth was shattered, and in many ways, our family broken. I got in touch with ExCamps immediately and told them I wanted to be involved. They were sweet and asked if I wanted to come do a visit, and I said, 'Well, I hope this doesn't sound weird - but I'd love to come be a counselor!' If I'm going to be involved in something, I want to fully understand it. They fit me in and I volunteered for a week as a counselor at the Maine location, Camp Somerset. It was life-changing. After that week I told them I wanted to do all I could to help. I'm now on the board and my goal is to get a camp in Texas! There is so much need here: 1 out of every 14 children in Texas will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18 - that’s 536,000 kids. In the last 5 years, ExCamps has seen a 300% increase in applications from Texas. Grief support resources are generally hard to find or overbooked, and in many small towns in Texas, they’re nonexistent.”
Lauren says day-to-day is like a traditional summer camp with activities like soccer, water sports, art, scavenger hunts, tug of war and meals in the dining hall. The evening campfires are where they deviate. “They’re beautifully emotional times where the kids have the opportunity to speak about the person they lost and share and support each other.” She continues, “The fun and community of a camp environment makes grief a little easier and kids more comfortable and open to healing. Grief is something we'll all go through, yet we don't learn about it in school, and even adults feel uncomfortable talking about it, so it's tough for kids. But, the campers call this 'the best week ever,' because it's the one time a year when everyone they're around understands the life-altering pain they're going through and where their pain can be met with a shared experience, an ease, and a lot of joy.”
Sara Deren founded ExCamps in 2009 and currently has seven locations nationally.
“Six million children in the U.S. will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they turn 18. That's 1 in 12 kids,” she says, adding, “Most of them would tell you they feel like they are the only ones going through it. One camper described it as feeling like he was in a fishbowl. He could see people outside the fishbowl, but he couldn't talk to them or connect with them. At camp, he told us, everyone is in the fishbowl together.“
Lauren is currently spearheading fundraising to open a camp in Texas. Her goal is to raise $1 million for the Texas camp to open in 2026. That $1 million would keep the location open and fully serving the kids of Texas for five years. Learn more at https://experiencecamps.org/