Summer camp applications are being accepted for 'California Experience'

VISTA – This summer, Aug. 5-17, at Green Oak Ranch in Vista, boys and girls from the West Coast can spend a week at the "California Experience." Experience Camps provides free, one-week camps for children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or primary caregiver. Along with swimming, arts, crafts and team sports, the children take part in bereavement activities including sharing circles where they are encouraged to talk about their grief.

The camp is currently accepting referrals and applications for boys and girls entering grades 4-12 in the 2019-2020 school year.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 1.5 million children are living in a single-family household because of the death of one parent. Grieving children are at higher risk than their non-grieving peers for depression, anxiety, poor school attendance or dropping out, isolation, behavior problems, lowered academic achievement, drug or alcohol abuse, incarceration or suicide.

The California girls camp runs Aug. 5-10, and the California boys camp is Aug. 12-17 at Green Oak Ranch in Vista. It's a place where children can laugh, cry, play, create, remember the person who died or forget the grief that weighs them down. It's a place where they can feel "normal," because everyone there has been through something similar and understands what it's like to lose someone important to them. In 2019, Experience Camps will have more than 700 campers at camps in Maine, California, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. For more information about Experience Camps, visit http://www.experience.camp.

Submitted by Experience Camps.