04/09/2024
Next week, Thursday, I head up to Walker Creek Ranch for the annual Milton Marks Family Camp to massage Neuro-Oncology patients and their spouses. It is a profound retreat for families going through the unimaginable. Read more below or check out the website, and if you feel inspired to contribute, any amount is helpful in running the program. DONATE TODAY! https://www.miltonmarksfamilycamp.org
This year's theme: HARBOR
In the world of brain tumors, seas are rarely calm. Even between the waves, storms threaten, and unexpected swells can knock you overboard in an instant. This camp, we will locate places of refuge (inside ourselves and outside) where we can anchor for a bit and find safety, community, even joy. Through family and individual art projects, through groups, through song, and through play, this camp year we ask families to imagine: what do your harbors look like? How can you create space for your family to be together and connected? What storms and sea creatures are you weathering, and what provides you safety and solace?
At Milton Marks Family Camp, we seek to provide whatever a family needs to feel like they’re on safe, dry land while they’re here: no meals to cook, no cleaning, no planning needed. Our youth counselors and our medical and logistics teams are there to make sure that kids and patients are always cared for so that everyone is free to be independant and not on high alert. When parents and kids are free to shift from crisis mode, and no longer need to watch for the next fire to put out, they have time to stop and consider: what are we like now as a family? how can we face this together? what am I experiencing and does anyone else feel the same? How is it possible to get through this? At camp, there is a whole community of people who get what you are going through — who are trying to put the same experience into words that you are. And a group of people who are going to help get you through it.
What does that care look like? It looks like much-needed massage sessions for parents to finally get to relax, and be in touch with their bodies again. It looks like campfires, and swimming, and a band of musicians to teach us to lift our voices together in song. It looks like goofily fun kids’ programming, a team of mental health and medical professionals leading patient and caregiver support groups and couple’s therapy meetings. Improv and teambuilding to get us to laugh together and become more connected. Portrait photographers to take beautiful family canvases, and document all of those candid family moments that happen at camp in a camp yearbook for each family.
These are all parts that make up a greater whole, and that greater whole is a community of understanding and of care that is truly transformative in families’ lives. Camp heals.
Camp is a week away!
We’re putting the final touches on this year’s camp, and getting excited about all of the wonderful programming we’ll be bringing to families. CAMP IS FREE FOR ALL FAMILIES, and we need you to make it happen!
We are about two thirds of the way to our goal of $80,000 to cover the costs for this year’s camp! We are still looking for sponsors for our camp programs:
A $100 contribution provides a family and staff camp t-shirts
A $250 donation covers the stipend of a mental health clinician
A $500 gift funds a volunteer’s housing and meals
A $750 gift funds a massage therapist for the weekend
A $1000 gift covers art supplies for our annual family art project
A $2500 contribution underwrites our music program for 2023, funding our three talented musicians’ camp and rehearsal time.
A $3500 donation funds a NEW FAMILY to be able to come to camp!
A $4000 gift underwrites our annual portrait photography and camp yearbook program
Want to learn more about us? Please check out our website at https://www.miltonmarksfamilycamp.org
Here is what one of our brain tumor dads had to say about Camp:
“It's [my daughters’] favorite weekend of the entire year. They look forward to it and not only do they get to have fun with all the activities but they make connection with the other kids. I think that's the hardest thing is, throughout the year, they don't necessarily have too many other kids to talk about this ... so when they come here, similar to us parents, they start out a different level with each other —not skirting around it. It's not that they're talking about it all through camp, but they're just standing and playing with kids and it kind of goes unsaid that ‘we're all in this together and I get what you're going through.’”
The Milton Marks Neuro-Oncology Family Camp is an annual weekend retreat created for families with children living at home, where one parent has a malignant brain tumor. In addition to providing the families with respite, the camp strengthens community and connection in an emotionally supportive en...
