What is
Hope for Kids?
At Hope for Kids, we are changing children’s lives by connecting kids from widely different backgrounds with each other, with caring and consistent mentors, and with nature’s miracles. Since 1992, a group of dedicated individuals has banded together to build community and inspire the lives of the socially and financially privileged and disadvantaged youth – not by keeping them separate, but by bringing them together each summer in a beautiful 88-acre camp facility in Pennsylvania. More than 15,000 kids have built lasting friendships, memories and a vibrant spiritual community at Camp Hope for Kids over the past 24 years.
What We Do
Camp Hope for Kids brings children between the ages of 8 to 18 to overnight camp for as short as a week and for as long as three months. Younger kids enjoy camp programs, such as R Camp, while teens have several special camping programs to choose from. Held in nature’s outdoor classroom, the emphasis is on teaching Christian values, leadership skills, teamwork, and learning to become environmental stewards and promote environmental sustainability. Campers build strong, life-changing relationships with counselors and mentors who are teens and adults dedicated to helping each child reach his or her full potential.
Through the use of summer sports and activities, as well as a detailed curriculum on the environment, the campers learn teamwork and respect: for themselves, for others, and for the environment. Perhaps most importantly, the camping programs for children and teens bring together 500 kids every week – 2500 each summer – from widely different circumstances. Children arrive from many different places: the inner city neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and other cities; programs for autistic children run by Valley Forge Educational Services; middle and upper-class homes from all over the U.S., and many countries around the world. Many attendees return year after year to enjoy sports, arts and crafts, talent shows, rock climbing, and other fun activities that build lasting friendships and memories that will remain with them forever.
Our Values
Camp Hope for Kids teaches the values and traditions of the Christian faith. While we are faith-based, we are not faith-biased. Our emphasis is on providing all attendees with the opportunity to live in a safe, vibrant, culturally diverse and accepting community that we hope will cultivate future leaders and responsible citizens. Our goal is to build community and teach the values of serving, hard work, initiative, creativity, responsibility, and perseverance.
Mentoring is an important component of all our camp programs. College-age and adult counselors work closely with all our campers to model values and leadership skills. Frequently, individuals who have for years come as a camper, transition into counselor-in-training roles as teens (affectionately called The Crew), and counselor roles as they reach college age, hoping to share what they have learned with the next generation of campers.
Faith and friendship strengthen all who come to Camp Hope for Kids. At a time in their lives when children may have little exposure to Jesus – or think faith is not “cool” – the camp establishes a foundation for life-long friendships and makes faith fun and attractive to kids. Our counselors offer campers heroes in the faith who are hip and courageous. Camp can become a catalyst to initiate Bible studies with teens and establish spiritual disciplines in prayer, fellowship and discipleship.
