The abrupt decrease in temperature during Saturday’s Homecoming football game changed Camp Kesem’s plan to fundraise with Kona Ice.
“We will have a table set up at the football game and we will be handing out candy for free and have buckets out for parents, or alumni, or students to donate to Camp Kesem,” said Collin Bracey, a Co-Development Chair of the group.
Camp Kesem at Augustana is a chapter of a non-profit national organization that operates free summer camps across the country for children with parents affected by cancer.
The nonprofit group’s ability to put on one of the largest camps is thanks to continuous fundraising throughout the year in many forms. This year has already seen the delivery of quesadillas and a week-long homecoming Penny Wars, among other things.
“At Augustana, we’re one of the smallest chapters in Camp Kesem, but we also put on one of the largest camps,” shared Sarah Lipps, an alumni of Camp Kesem, marketing and public relations coordinator for the group.
All of the continuous fundraising is leading the group to an even larger goal than just putting the camp on each year. It is leading to the goal of an expansion that would make the camp practically double in scope.
“Our camp right now is one week,” said Lipps, “Our five year goal is, eventually, to move to two weeks. And then we can support twice the amount of kids. Right now, we’re only supporting 120, but eventually we would love to support over 200”.
Bracey shared some examples of other things to keep an eye out for in the coming weeks that will all lead into the reality of the five year goal:
“We’ve already done a quesadilla fundraiser, which we plan on doing again. We’re either going to do quesadillas or grilled cheese. We do Dine N’ Donates, where we go to a restaurant and they will donate a certain amount of their revenue between two certain times. We [also] have Giving Tuesday, which is a really big day for us”.
Giving Tuesday is a day in which online donations can be made to the group through the website Classy. The donations received are not subject to any sort of fee, 100 percent of the money given in donations goes directly to the organization. This event itself can be responsible for 15-20 percent of the group’s goals for the year alone.
Camp Kesem continues to look for donors, and as Bracey puts it, “without donors, there is no camp.”
When asked what it is that made him such a supporter of this organization, Bracey said it was the kids.
“You see how much fun they’re having and they forget that one of their parents might be sick, for just a week. It really touches you, knowing you can bring about that. You can really help them. It’s just really remarkable”.