{"id":354537,"date":"2026-06-29T16:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/354537\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:21:12","slug":"a-hill-country-summer-camp-helps-texas-kids-navigate-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/354537\/","title":{"rendered":"A Hill Country summer camp helps Texas kids navigate grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a Friday in mid-June, middle school-aged kids lined up for their shot at a summer camp rite of passage: the infamous high ropes course at John Knox Ranch in Fischer, Texas. The ranch hosts Camp Brave Heart<\/a>, Hospice Austin<\/a>\u2019s annual camp for kids and teens who have experienced loss.<\/p>\n

13-year-old Alisa bravely stepped up to the challenge first. Soon enough, she was strapped into a harness, inching along ropes strung 30 feet in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are rocking this!\u201d the counselor belaying her from the ground yelled as Alisa neared the end of the course. \u201cTake a second \u2014 you want to look at the view?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Jesus Christ!\u201d she yelled, catching a glimpse of the treetops beyond her and laughing. With some coaching from the counselor, Alisa leaned back from the ropes and allowed herself to be safely lowered to the ground, receiving cheers from her fellow campers.<\/p>\n

Camp director Esmerelda Huerta said the high ropes course is about more than fun; it gives kids a chance to practice courage, true to the Camp Brave Heart name.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to learn how to trust themselves,\u201d Huerta said. \u201cLife throws things at you, but you\u2019ve got to learn how to trust yourself that you can do it, and you can do hard things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Michael Minasi<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

KUT News<\/p>\n

Alisa, 13, participates in the high ropes course at Camp Brave Heart.<\/p>\n

Different ways to grieve<\/p>\n

Huerta helps run Camp Brave Heart as part of her role as a program manager for Hospice Austin, a palliative and hospice care nonprofit. The organization has held the free summer camp for nearly 30 years. Huerta considers it a natural extension of Hospice Austin\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur care doesn’t stop at Hospice Austin once family members die,\u201d she said. \u201cIt continues afterward \u2026 to provide support to adults, but also to kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campers range from rising second graders to rising 10th graders. Huerta said many of them arrive apprehensive, nervous to attend a camp associated with grief and reluctant to discuss their losses. Meanwhile, worried parents often feel a sense of urgency for their kids to talk about what they\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom time to time, I get calls that say, \u2018My kid needs to really come talk to somebody,\u2019 and the parent is actually projecting how they\u2019re feeling,\u201d Huerta said.<\/p>\n

“They can still have fun at a grief camp. It’s not all gloom and doom and sadness.”<\/p>\n

Esmerelda Huerta, director of Camp Brave Heart<\/p>\n

But sometimes, that\u2019s not what their child actually needs. They want the \u201cgrown-ups\u201d to give them space to be a kid and stop pushing them to react or process in particular ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re like \u2026 \u2018Let me navigate this, and let me figure out my school and my friends. Things are already so hard,\u2019\u201d Huerta said. \u201cEverybody grieves differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Huerta said, it\u2019s the freedom to have some fun doing normal camp things \u2014 from ropes, to archery, to arts and crafts and swimming at Wimberly\u2019s Blue Hole \u2014 that turns out to be the most therapeutic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can still have fun at a grief camp. It’s not all gloom and doom and sadness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fast friendships<\/p>\n

The opportunity to talk is there, though. The staff and volunteers at Camp Brave Heart are prepared to help kids through tough feelings and conversations and learn healthy ways to cope with grief.<\/p>\n

Angela Baucom, a trained social worker, has returned to Camp Brave Heart as a counselor for five years now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was young, I lost my mother, and it was just like falling into the ocean with nowhere to go,\u201d Baucom said. \u201cSo when I come here and I get to be with these kiddos who are going through similar things, it gives me an opportunity to be a person for them that I needed when I was their age.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Children<\/p>\n

Michael Minasi<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

KUT News<\/p>\n

Attendees of Camp Brave Heart hike to their next activity at John Knox Ranch in Fischer, Texas. <\/p>\n

Sometimes, that looks like listening to a kid as they open up. Other times, it\u2019s climbing a ladder and swinging from a rope on the ropes course to show the campers that it\u2019s not so scary. It\u2019s being an adult who gets what they\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes a matter of hours for them to realize that there are other people around them, adults and young folks who have been through something similar,\u201d Baucom said.<\/p>\n

Those camp bonds are formed quickly; 13-year-old Dashona\u2019s nervousness about meeting a big group of new kids quickly dissolved at a pool party the first night when she and other campers her age laughed their way through creating synchronized swimming routines. Soon enough, she had made fast friends \u2014 and given them nicknames.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlisa, I call her Love Bug,\u201d Dashona said while waiting her turn for the high ropes course, also pointing out her pals \u201cCountry Boy\u201d and \u201cLadybug.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made such great bonds,\u201d she said. \u201cAlthough we\u2019ve only been here for like two days, we\u2019ve all gotten to know each other really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memory boxes and group chats<\/p>\n

Through camp, kids are periodically split up into small groups with others who have experienced similar losses. Campers bring a variety of experiences to the table: they have lost loved ones to prolonged disease, suicide, or sudden accidents and health issues. Some have lost parents or grandparents. Others have lost siblings or friends.<\/p>\n

For Dashona, it was her grandmother\u2019s death that brought her to Camp Brave Heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was one of my favorite people, and one of the most amazing people that you would ever meet, mainly because she understood everything,\u201d Dashona said. \u201cShe was sweet, she was caring, she was very loving \u2014 and her favorite color was red.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Michael Minasi<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

KUT News<\/p>\n

Each camper at Camp Brave Heart decorates a memory box to honor a lost loved one.<\/p>\n

One of the ways campers have the chance to honor their loved ones is by decorating special wooden memory boxes. Each box is unique. One has an American flag and a football painted on it. Another has \u201cBaby Brother\u201d written on the side in silver stick-on letters. Dashona\u2019s is bedazzled with red gems.<\/p>\n

On the last night of camp, the kids bring their memory boxes to a final memorial service and talk about what they plan to put inside of them. Huerta said it\u2019s a way of building a ritual for them to lean on as they leave camp, something they can carry with them as they grow up.<\/p>\n

Dashona said she\u2019s glad to have the box to take home with her, along with the lessons she\u2019s learned at camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned that it’s okay to be sad, and that you’re not alone in this process,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also taking something else with her: the phone numbers for Love Bug, Country Boy and Ladybug. They plan to start a group chat and invite each other over for their birthday parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a Friday in mid-June, middle school-aged kids lined up for their shot at a summer camp rite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,71910,126147,126148,126149,5575,4178,126150,126151,27],"class_list":["post-354537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-camp","tag-camp-brave-heart","tag-camp-braveheart","tag-fischer","tag-grief","tag-hill-country","tag-hospice-austin","tag-john-knox-ranch","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}