One New Chapter Deserves Another (Camp Kesem)
On May 9th, 2015, Mark and I will get together with friends and family, celebrate our love and commitment to one another, and make it official! As we begin this new chapter of our lives, surrounded by some of those who will support us and lift us up in years to come, we know that building a successful marriage on love and shared values is something we must do together but cannot do alone.
It is in that spirit that we have decided to forego any kind of wedding registry and ask our friends and family near and far, cancer survivors and their friends who worried about the children, loved ones of parents who lost their battle to cancer, strangers who believe in helping children—to join us in doing something else we feel we must do together but cannot do alone: begin a brand new chapter of Camp Kesem in a state where there currently is none. We have selected Kansas. It is the state where Mark was born, and many of the faculty at Kansas University were very dear to Mark’s father. It was in Kansas that Mark’s life was saved by brilliant doctors when they caught the meningitis he suffered as an infant. (Thank you! I owe you big time.)
Camp Kesem is a national organization providing free summer camps to children affected by a parent’s cancer; each chapter is run by volunteer college students.
We believe they are saving lives, plain and simple.
When my mother died of cancer, I had just turned 13; there was no Camp Kesem then. I went to the same summer camp I had gone to every year. I had great friends, but they didn’t get it. No matter how good your friends are, how kind or supportive, there is nothing on this earth like connecting with someone who gets what you’re going through, though the details may be different, because in some way they are going through it too. Without anyone who “got it,” I quickly turned to drugs and alcohol. At 13, I was an honor student with perfect attendance—the sort of kid who can miss a month of school for surgery and still get straight A’s. At 14, I was a drug addict. Today, I am the Executive Director of an Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center called CareForward Health. The details of that transformation are another story entirely, but it has a happy ending.
In so many ways, neither of us should even be here, but here we are. And as we embark on this new journey together, beginning this new chapter of our lives, we hope you will join us in beginning a new chapter devoted to the lives of others: Camp Kesem, KU. With the love and support of CEO Jane Saccaro, we have partnered with Camp Kesem to ensure that everything donated by our friends, family, and generous friends we haven’t met yet will go directly to funding this brand new chapter.
The students of the University of Kansas want their own chapter of Camp Kesem and Mark and I want to give it to them, but we can’t do it without your help. A new chapter of Camp Kesem takes $40,000 to fund. We can buy our own silverware.
Please, donate, share, help us help children in Kansas affected by a parent’s cancer. Help us begin this new chapter of our lives with the greatest joy there is in life: helping others.
We love you!
-Corrie & Mark