One week every summer at Camp Aldersgate in Brantingham, New York. For 40 years.
Free for every family
Camp High Hopes gives children and teens with bleeding disorders a week of summer camp, with the medical side handled and everyone around them understanding.
It has been free to families for 40 years and run entirely by volunteers, many of whom came to camp as campers themselves.
Every day has the same easy shape. Here is a typical one.
Morning
Cabins get moving together, then everyone heads to breakfast.
Mid-morning
Swimming, boating and fishing on the water, or archery, sports and arts and crafts on land.
Midday
A chance to eat, cool off and rest before the afternoon.
Afternoon
More time on the water and on land, with the year’s theme worked in.
Evening
Dinner, then time to hang out with the cabin.
Night
Songs around the campfire, then back to the cabins for the night.
The nursing team is on site and works from each camper’s plan on the application, so medical care fits around the schedule instead of interrupting it.
Swimming, boating, and fishing.
Archery, sports, arts and crafts.
A big event and the talent show.
Every year gets its own theme. The Olympics one summer, the Old West the next. Each year gets its own shirt color too, so a camper who comes from 7 to 17 goes home with a different one each time.
Children and teens ages 7 to 17 with a bleeding disorder. Camp is open to boys and girls, and it is free.
Girls with hemophilia are campers in their own right. If a treatment center has told your daughter she has hemophilia, mild, moderate or severe, she belongs here.
Not sure your child is eligible?
Everyone was new once. Most of our counselors started as first-time campers, so the people running your child’s week remember what the first day feels like.
Five or six to a cabin, with a counselor who knows every kid by the second day.
Nurses at the infirmary, working from the plan you give us on the application.
Nobody is pushed to self-infuse before they are ready.
Nervous, or just want to hear it from a person? A camp director will talk it through with you before you apply.
A nursing team is on site all week, in an infirmary at the camp itself, led by our health director.
Campers bring their own medication and factor product, and the team works from the plan families give us on the application. Most of our counselors grew up with a bleeding disorder themselves.
Noon.
Date to be announced.
Camper and staff applications both open this month.
Camp Aldersgate, Brantingham, New York. Dates to be announced.
No upcoming dates are listed right now. Questions?