Kennedy’s City Camp Experience
For children like Kennedy, impacted by cancer or blood disorders, City Camp offers more than fun - it's a safe place to build confidence, connection, and independence.
Kennedy’s family has always been a small, close-knit, deeply connected unit - with her mom Elizabeth, dad Ken, Kennedy’s auntie Dawn-Marie, and Kennedy’s Grandma Marilyn. Before Kennedy was born, Elizabeth and Ken were building their life together, working hard, buying a home, and hoping to grow their family. After the difficulty of experiencing five miscarriages, Kennedy’s arrival felt miraculous. “She was our rainbow baby,” Elizabeth shared.
They were still learning to be parents, and adjusting to the whirlwind of changes that come with parenthood when Kennedy was diagnosed with leukemia at 17 months old. A healthy and happy baby just the day before, it had come as a complete shock. From the moment Kennedy was taken to their local hospital in Mission in the morning, to the time they heard the word “cancer”, only seven and a half hours had gone by. It was July of 2019, and during their transfer by ambulance to BC Children's Hospital, doctors prepared Elizabeth and Ken for what the next 24 hours would look like - an overwhelming blur of tests, information, and urgent medical care.
Amid the shock and fear, they were grateful that her symptoms had been caught quickly and treatment could begin immediately. Their family already worked together in every aspect of life, and they knew they’d need to rely heavily on one another to get through this. Elizabeth describes that moment as “the beginning of a really long journey.”
Navigating the Unknown
Kennedy’s treatment journey was incredibly complex and challenging. It involved infections, blood clots, ICU stays, heart complications, and rare side effects from chemotherapy that forced her care team to repeatedly rethink her treatment plan.“Finding a safe course of treatment felt impossible at times,” Elizabeth explained. But her care team remained determined to find a way forward.
And yet, beneath all the medical complexity, Kennedy was still just a baby. “I remember the games we invented to try to keep her calm when they were trying to do things, and singing Baby Shark, and the most random things we could think of because she wasn’t even two yet,” Elizabeth shared. “She was so sick, but she was still a baby who needed all the normal baby stuff too, and it was such a hard time to reconcile.”
Today, one of the things they feel most grateful for is that Kennedy was so young during treatment that she doesn’t carry vivid memories of those difficult times. “As her parents, we remember everything,” Elizabeth said. “But we’re grateful that’s something we can carry for her.”
So, during the summer of 2025, they decided to give it a try, and that first day changed everything. “We were all so terrified, but I dropped her off that first day and she came home that night a different kid - and we knew this was perfect for her and exactly what she needed.”
“Looking back it was the best decision,” Elizabeth shared. “Kennedy is so thrilled with camp and she loves everything about it. We saw a difference in her immediately - the way she described everything, the joy and excitement, and how comfortable she felt.”
A Place to Grow
Kennedy quickly found confidence and connection at City Camp, forming deep bonds and friendships, excitedly telling her parents all about her self-proclaimed “camp besties.” For Elizabeth, the biggest transformation was seeing her daughter experience independence. “We realized that letting her go and find some independence, while tough for us, was the best gift we could have given her because she was in a safe, trusted place where her cancer journey wasn’t something that made her different.” Kennedy had the space to grow, flourish, and take on new responsibilities. “She realized could handle things and that new experiences didn’t have to be scary. And I think she learned that from camp.”
The experience also gave Kennedy’s family something they hadn’t realized they needed: a chance to pause and process what they’ve been through. “It did so much for our family too,” Elizabeth explained. “For us to be able to take Kennedy to City Camp for a week, we all got a moment to catch our breath. We needed that.”
Camp is a safe, supportive place where kids can be kids. “City Camp gave Kennedy a chance to just be one of the kids,” Elizabeth said. “The days Kennedy is at City Camp she’s just a little kid having fun. And that experience, I think, is worth so much to these kids who spend so much time being sick.”
Why City Camp Matters
For families impacted by childhood cancer and blood disorders, so much of daily life revolves around their sickness, around medical appointments, safety precautions, fear, and uncertainty. And even for kids like Kennedy, years out from treatment, being a cancer survivor still shapes their experience and can make them feel different from their peers. City Camp offers something profoundly different.
“It gives children, who might not normally have the opportunity, to have a somewhat normal kid experience,” Elizabeth shared. “City Camp isn't just a camp for these kids. It's a break. It's a break from stressed-out parents and caregivers. And it's a break from being held back because you're different from the other kids in your class, or the other kids in your neighborhood.”
“It gives them a chance to safely blossom, and just be a kid. Kennedy didn’t have that before City Camp.” At camp, Kennedy wasn’t defined by her diagnosis. She was simply Kennedy - a creative, funny, spirited little girl full of character and surrounded by people who understood her medical journey without explanation.
“City Camp gets to be about kids having fun,” Elizabeth said. “It gets to be about art, dancing, making friends and playing games - and being sick, or having been sick, doesn’t make you different because you’re among other kids and families that have had that experience.”
When it comes to helping donors understand the impact of what they are making possible, Elizabeth says, “When people are donating to City Camp, they are giving kids and their families a chance to not think about cancer. It’s a reprieve from a very scary, daunting, and stressful time. When you remove all that, and let them just be kids and have fun together for that time, that’s the greatest gift you can give them.”
You can send a kid to camp!
When Kennedy arrived at City Camp, she found more than a week of activities and fun - she found confidence, friendship, independence, and the chance to simply be a kid. Every spring and summer, children impacted by cancer and blood disorders experience the same sense of belonging, joy, and freedom at City Camp.
Your gift can help send a child to camp and make that experience possible. Together, we can give kids the chance to laugh, grow, and simply be kids.
