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Camp Fantastic is about just being a kid, and it’s about building a community of friends, even when you’re online. No one needs community more than kids battling cancer, especially in the time of COVID19.  This year, Camp Fantastic proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that community can be found anywhere. The Special Love staff and core of volunteers helped create virtual magic through live-streamed special guests, arts and crafts, photography classes, music, firehouse tours, game and movie nights and so many other online adventures.   To help campers find their activities, we created Campfantastic.org which with just a simple click to an activity became the center of all the action – and still is, thanks to recordings that can be viewed anytime to relive the fun.  Campers, and sometimes their families, joined us for live demonstrations, campfires, and live Q&A [...]

The young siblings of cancer patients deserve a chance to shine, even in the best of times. This year it was even more important because of the impact of COVID-19, so we gave them the entire month of July to be in the spotlight!  BRASS Camp, which is just for siblings, is normally held during the last full week in July at Camp Maria in Leonardtown, MD. This year’s pandemic made us move camp to online, but it gave us the opportunity to devote an entire month to siblings. An entire month!  Parents who feared their children might not be able to reconnect, instead watched as they connected daily through virtual campfires, arts and crafts, game nights, movies, bingo, and more. And because [...]

Skiing - Adaptive skiing – and weather – at Canaan Valley Resort It was all about family.  Special Love’s annual Ski Family Weekend was held over the Martin Luther King Weekend at Canaan Valley Resort near Davis, WV, and provided more than 40 families with 3 days of skiing, snowboarding, tubing, great food and lots of indoor fun. For some of the families, it was a chance to join in the fun by using adaptive skiing equipment* to enjoy a day on the slopes. Everyone  had to adapt to widely varying weather throughout the event, which included rain on [...]

What winter woes? Our winter has been wonderful! Another terrific Winter Weekend is in the books!   Great weather at Bryce Resort in Basye, Virginia provided the perfect place for a wide array of fun winter activities such as skiing, snowboarding, tubing, games and roasting marshmallows over the camp fire.   It also gave our teen campers and young adult cancer survivors a chance to rekindle camp friendships. . Our “rustic” lodging was provided by Shrine Mont, a retreat center in Orkney Springs, just two miles from Bryce Resort, allowing us to spend the entire day Saturday on the slopes and [...]

Dec. 1st 2019 We just wrapped up our annual Holiday Party for current and past patients as well as volunteers. We had 63 families and countless Special Love volunteers participate this year which made for an almost full house at the Franconia Firehall in Franconia, VA. The 3-hour party consisted of arts and crafts, face painting, balloon-making, tours of the firehouse, and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus who handed out chocolate Santa’s courtesy of Ray White with the Optimist Club. Also huge thank you to TC Williams and his 35 volunteers for coming out again to help [...]

Nov. 23-24, 2019 Parents’ Getaway hosted 29 couples, 4 couples who have never participated with Special Love before and 8 who have been to another program but never Parents’ Getaway. The historic George Washington Hotel in Winchester, VA. hosted us again this year. We kicked the morning off with a nice breakfast then jumped right into the morning program. This year we invited Matthew Zachary, founder of Stupid Cancer, to speak to the parents on Resiliency. His story was extremely captivating and the parents really enjoyed it. After a small break we broke out into a parent panel discussion [...]

Octoberfest Family Weekend is one of the most highly anticipated events of the year! It's the event that kicks off fall for our Special Love families, and this year was no different. We had 27 families join us for a full weekend of autumn activities for the whole family. Friday evening is our first social time, with families arriving at the 4-H Center in Front Royal, VA, arts and crafts, and our opening ceremony at Campfire. Saturday was a jam-packed day of activity! This year we shook things up and trekked to Wayside Farm Fun in Berryville, VA and everyone [...]

Our annual KOA Day, held at the KOA in Williamsburg, VA, was a huge hit this year! We had a record number of families, 12 families, 58 people total. The amazing people of KOA, who sponsor the day, provided a wonderful lunch for the families and allowed us to take advantage of the activities they bring into the camp site. The morning kicked off with fun crafts, and then everyone headed out for a hiking adventure. After lunch families participated in various family centered activities, took advantage of the heated outdoor pool, the marshmallow bouncers and KOA’s new Frisbee golf [...]