Experience Camps<\/a> was created 15 years ago. It offers week-long summer camps across the country for kids who are dealing with grief. <\/p>\nThe youngest campers are eight years old, and as kids get older, they begin to mentor the younger campers. It\u2019s a full circle of giving, love, and emotion. <\/p>\n
To the excitement of many Texas families, the nonprofit is opening its very first camp in the state in summer 2026. <\/p>\n
There will be a week-long camp in August for the kids, and a weekend camp in May for the whole family. <\/p>\n
KSAT got a tour of the campgrounds in Marble Falls, where many lives will be changed next summer. <\/p>\n
Take it from Lia and Isaac Gracia, who lost their dad six years ago.<\/p>\n
Their mother quickly registered them for Experience Camps, and by the next year, they were at camp building resilience, confidence and truly honing in on their feelings. <\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I started camp, I was nervous. I didn\u2019t want to try anything, I didn\u2019t want to do anything,\u201d 14-year-old Lia said. \u201cBut after I went to camp, it opened me up to new things that I wasn\u2019t able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I was super kept to myself before camp, but when I went to camp, I was wanting to go out a lot,\u201d 12-year-old Isaac said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s all the fun of a regular summer camp, but with freedom to grieve, talk about loss, meet with therapists daily, and make lifelong friends. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne time, they allowed us to grab glass plates, put them in a Ziplock bag, and like throw them, and you\u2019re able to actually get your feelings out. That was amazing!\u201d Lia said. \u201cThen you can paint on a canvas your story. Different colors means different feelings. It\u2019s so amazing to do all these things and actually have ways to get it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The siblings said it is an immediate relief each summer when they get to camp and immediately feel understood. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty amazing to have all these people surrounding you and definitely to have all the comfort around,\u201d Isaac said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the kids who understand grief; it\u2019s the counselors, too, who are typically adults between the ages of 25 and 35.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a volunteer counselor because I lost my dad 15 years ago. Another co-counselor I have lost her brother when she was young,\u201d said Lauren Zima who is now an Experience Camps board member. <\/p>\n
Zima is a former host on Entertainment Tonight and when she began opening up about her grief on social media, a representative from Experience Camps contacted her and offered her volunteer opportunities. <\/p>\n
She was so inspired by the camp mission that she became a board member and is now helping open Experience Camps\u2019 first-ever Texas location. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe partner with existing for-profit camps like the wonderful Camp Champions who\u2019s helping us out here in Marble Falls. And we come in at the end of their for-profits summer, and we use their facilities before they shut down for the summer,\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
She said kids in Texas had been asking for a local location for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a waitlist of kids wanting to use our programs in Texas. Actually, some of the kids who are siblings of the Uvalde victims had been using the online resources,\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
KSAT got to tag along on Zima\u2019s first tour of their new location with Camp Champions Executive Director Eric Hillis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m actually really looking forward to building the schedule with y\u2019all!\u201d Hillis said as he pointed out art buildings, basketball courts, a giant pool, rock climbing, obstacle courses and the calm, beautiful lake.<\/p>\n
Hillis and Zima began discussing which activities the Experience Camps kids might enjoy doing this summer. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have, I would definitely say, do kayaking. We\u2019ll have paddleboards. The bigger boats, they all have to work to paddle together in the same direction,\u201d Hillis said. <\/p>\n
Those are all things Zima has seen become positive metaphors for kids dealing with loss. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe physical activities build the strength back in these kids. Then they get this hour of group grief counseling every day with a volunteer grief clinician. We have different prompts that help them open up,\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
The plans for the Texas location were already in motion when the July 4 floods hit the Hill Country this summer. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in regular contact with some of the Mystic parents because we want to support them as much as we can. A few things that we\u2019re exploring are doing a specific retreat just for victims of the floods, where we would have our grief clinicians really cater to them. This is the type of counseling you guys might need based on what you\u2019ve been through,\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
Zima said flood survivors from Mystic and beyond could have their own time and ability to process their loss in a joyful environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the right intervention happens, you can bring joy and resilience and build incredibly empathetic, wonderful kids, even when they\u2019ve been through the worst. When they come to camp, you see their shoulders drop, you see them think, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m around people who get it. I don\u2019t have to put on a mask here,\u2019\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
Once kids are campers, they can return each year. <\/p>\n
\u201cA camper who loses a parent at age eight, their questions about grief, their struggles with grief are very different when they\u2019re 15, 16. So they can come back to camp every single year. That\u2019s part of our framework,\u201d Zima said. <\/p>\n
When it comes to new campers, Lia and Isaac\u2019s message is this: \u201cJust don\u2019t be nervous. Give it a chance because it actually helps you out in the end, and it gives you a different perspective of everything, and it comforts you. It helps out a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sign-ups have already begun for next summer\u2019s sessions. Anyone who wants to register or get information can go to the Experience Camps website<\/a>. <\/p>\nCopyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARBLE FALLS, Texas \u2013 Losing a loved one can derail a child\u2019s life, and it often causes them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,97,4872,154083,3,2316,1022,452,453],"class_list":["post-294966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-hill-country-floods","tag-marble-falls","tag-news","tag-summer","tag-texas","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}