mobanmarketNEW YORK CITY, NY — Camp Erin NYC offers its young campers more than bonfires, s’mores, and swimming; it gives them space to grieve together the family they loved and lost.
The space is a lakeside camp at 56 Nice People Place in Preston Park, Pennsylvania, where last weekend a group of 55 kids ages 7 through 17 — all of whom have lost parents or siblings — made arts and crafts, played games, and shared some sadness.
Camp Erin provides a valuable tool, director Ann Fuchs told Patch, because young people often process emotion through play.
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“Research shows that play is a child’s natural language,” Fuchs said. Her hope is campers take home “a toolbox of strategies to help them navigate their grief journey.”
Camp Erin NYC bears the name of Erin Metcaf, a teenaged girl diagnosed with liver cancer whose Make-A-Wish plea was granted by Major League Baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer.
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Moyer and his wife befriended the fatally sick teen, and when she died at the age of 17 in 2000, they decided to honor her memory by founding a grief camp in her name.
As of 2023, there are 34 Camp Erin locations across the U.S. providing help to nearly 1,900 campers, according to its website.
The New York City branch, which debuted in 2012, was born from a meeting of minds between Moyer and COPE founder Lillian Julien, who lost her daughter Michelle in 1992.
“[COPE] was born out of her grief,” said Fuchs, “to support other bereaved parents out of her living room.”
The service they provide is a necessary one, Fuchs said. Numbers bear her out.
One in 14 children in New York will experience the death of a parent or sibling before their 18th birthday, according to the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model.
Which is why, last weekend, a group of New York City kids found themselves in a place where, as Fuchs puts it, “no child grieves alone.”
The kids were placed in small groups, dictated by age and gender, led by two trained clinicians and supported by other adults called “bunk buddies,” Fuchs told Patch.
There was time for play, but also talk.
Throughout the weekend, there are five structured grief circles, each focusing on a specific topic.
In the first group, children built trust and rapport through icebreakers and worked together to make a group bracelet.
In groups two through five, campers bonded and honored late loved ones with photo frames and memory boards. They discussed emotions and developing coping skills—like learning to release feelings they want to let go of, Fuchs explained.
“Children grieve in doses,” Fuchs said. “Each group focuses on ways to integrate healthy coping patterns and behaviors.”
Support doesn’t end with camp.
Co-organizer Eluna also provides year-round support to campers, such as a free online Mindfulness & Movement event in October for grieving teens and young adults.
That’s important to Fuchs, because she wants to provide more than a weekend of relief.
The camp director said she hopes each child leaves “recognizing they are not alone and that they can talk about the people in their lives who have died.”
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