SPECIAL LOVE INC
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Mission Statement
Special Love provides free camps, financial relief, scholarships, and a community of support to children with cancer and their families.
About This Cause
For 40 years, Special Love has provided a strong, nurturing environment for children with cancer and their families through its free camps and get-away weekends. We have also offered emergency financial assistance, educational scholarships for young adults who have beaten cancer and are ready to move on with their lives, and scholarships for their siblings. Special Love’s Camp Fantastic is a protocol within the National Cancer Institute and a recognized charity within the National Institutes of Health. Since its inception in 1983, children have come from the Washington metropolitan area, as well as from areas across the country through partnerships with the National Cancer Institute and Mid-Atlantic area hospitals. Each year, Special Love serves hundreds of children, families, and young adults, and receives no government funding. All operating funds are provided by individual, corporate, and foundation donors. Children who participate in and benefit from Special Love's programs range in age from 7-17 years of age, and young survivors ages 18-30 years of age. Camp Fantastic – is held at the Northern Virginia 4-H Center located in Front Royal, Virginia; and welcomes more than 100 children each year who are actively in treatment, or survivors up to 5 years past treatment as they adjust to their “new normal.” Campers range in age from 7 to 17. Physicians and nurses from the National Cancer Institute provide complete medical care during camp so no child is left behind due to treatment. Because of this unique partnership Special Love is able to provide the camp experience to the sickest children, who otherwise would have no camp options. Camp Fantastic gives them a happy place to belong in the darkest part of their young lives. The lasting love for camp is evident in that 80 percent of our counselors are former campers themselves. BRASS Camp and BRASS Weekend – stands for BRothers And SiSters. BRASS is designed specifically for the siblings of our patients, as well as bereaved siblings. BRASS offers them a place for open, honest dialog with other campers and counselors to ensure they too are enveloped in a strong support system where they can put the family trauma of cancer away to spend time being a kid, with the focus completely on them. The importance BRASS plays in the siblings’ lives is significant; so much so, 90 percent of the camp counselors, and counselors in training, are former BRASS campers themselves. Emergency Financial Relief - A cancer diagnosis changes every aspect of a family’s life. Next to the well-being of a child, a parent’s most pressing concern is often financial. Special Love provides emergency financial relief to families who have participated Special Love’s programming, as well as other families dealing with a child’s cancer. Assistance helps with non-medical financial needs such as utilities, rent and mortgage, as well as auto repair and payment and assisting in laying a child to rest. Educational Scholarships - Childhood cancer leaves families with debt, and some survivors with learning challenges that may make it difficult to attend, or get into a college or other post-secondary educational institution and trade schools. Each year, Special Love provides 35 to 40 educational scholarships to young cancer survivors who have participated in Special Love’s programs to assist with books, housing, and tuition. Special Love’s young scholarship recipients have endured challenges and heartache during their treatments and move on with their lives by exhibiting great courage and strength. All have determined not to let cancer define them, or limit their futures. Many scholarship recipients pursue careers in the medical and social work fields because they understand how important those individuals are in helping a child - and family - through the medical nightmare of pediatric cancer.