KiDS NEED MoRE celebrated the 37th summer of its flagship Camp Adventure program at Timber Lake West, giving children facing childhood cancer and their siblings a week filled with friendship, adventure and the freedom to simply be kids. Camp Adventure is a place where these children can go and just be kids without the constant reminders of their ongoing battles.

There is a moment during Camp Adventure when an otherwise exuberant summer camp becomes very still. Campers and volunteers gather as the names of children, family members and others connected to the Camp Adventure community who have died are displayed before them. They remember each person. They release butterflies in their honor. Then, together, they sing “I Will Run,” a song written many years ago by former Camp Adventure camper and childhood cancer patient Karissa Carey about her own experience. The song eventually became the camp anthem. The ceremony is called MoRE Memories, and for the people who return to Camp Adventure year after year, it captures something essential about this unusual community. There is no pretending that cancer has not touched these families profoundly. There is also a collective determination not to allow cancer to be the only thing that defines their lives.

The Timber Lake West staff worked alongside an enormous team of KiDS NEED MoRE volunteers to make the week happen, from meals and waterfront activities to the ropes course, zip line, go-karts and countless details most campers will never know had to be handled behind the scenes. For Firmes, who is herself a leukemia survivor, watching that enormous collaboration come together carried a particular meaning.

She knows how quickly illness can begin organizing a person’s world around things they never chose: doctors, medications, procedures, appointments, test results and uncertainty.

“Our kids have enough people asking them about cancer,” Firmes said. “At camp, we want to know if they’re going fishing in the morning, what they’re wearing to prom, if they’re brave enough to get on the zip line and what they’re doing in the talent show. They deserve to have people interested in all of the other things that make them who they are”.

This year’s theme was “Every Day Is a Holiday,” which meant the KiDS NEED MoRE activities team attempted the somewhat unreasonable feat of squeezing an entire calendar of celebrations into a single week. There was New Year’s, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July, along with the kind of elaborate camp-wide silliness that has become a Camp Adventure tradition. On Thursday, campers sat down for Thanksgiving dinner. There was a rock concert, a magician and a talent show that gave campers the stage for singing, dancing and performances that surprised even people who thought they knew them well.