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History of Camp No Worries
 Shared by Kasey Hall-Massa
"Camp No Worries was founded after experiencing firsthand the physical and emotional aspects of a cancer diagnosis. In 1986, I was like every other 11-year-old child, anxiously awaiting school to end and summer to begin. What my family and I didn’t expect was that our summer would begin with frantic medical appointments, emergency scans, all eventually ending with a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor. Summer plans of vacation at the beach, swimming with friends, riding bikes and water-sking on the lake, became plans of cutting my long dark hair, shaving it bald and going to surgery to save my life. We were fortunate that the tumor could be resected and I would be left with minimal side effects from surgery. However, the summer of 1986 was spent at the hospital and medical appointments with staff telling me everything I could not do, rather than what I could do. I remember feeling angry, scared and very isolated from my friends as they began looking forward to all of the exciting things they were going to do on their summer break.
 During this time, I wanted to protect my parents from my feelings. I knew they understood how difficult this was all going to be. I knew they felt the need to give so much time, attention and understanding to me, but there were still two other children at home who didn’t understand what was happening, why they were being shipped around, and why their plans for a fun summer had ended so abruptly.
Years later, my family and I decided to use what we had learned throughout my diagnosis, treatment, and recovery process to create a summer camp environment for children facing a diagnosis of cancer. Our goal was a place where kids could just be kids and do the things that make them happy, the things that make them kids! With the assistance of many family members, friends, co-workers and the community, we were able to establish Camp No Worries in the summer of 1995.
 Our first year was a small start to say the least. We hosted 14 children overnight for four short days and what a wonderful experience it was! Our hope was to always expand the camping experience to the entire family, so the very next summer, we included both patients and siblings and our numbers jumped to 72 children, overnight, for one full week.
The unfortunate aspect of working with children with cancer is that not all of them conquer this horrible disease. It is the unanimous belief of Camp No Worries, The Board of Directors, and our Leadership Team, that if a sibling experiences the loss of his/her brother or sister, he/she should not lose his/her camp experience as well. Therefore, Camp No Worries includes bereaved siblings and we have never looked back on the decision.
I am very proud to say that today we are able to accommodate up to 100 children. Camp No Worries runs on a full volunteer staff. And, Camp No Worries will remain a part of the families of children with cancer for a long time to come”.
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