For the fourth year in a row, the Carole Landis Foundation will be a sponsor for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp’s hospital outreach program, Camp Week at CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia), which brings the fun of summer camp to kids facing serious illness.

In July, the camp’s Outreach Specialists will be working with hospital staff and volunteers to bring the playful spirit of camp to 500 kids' bedsides and playrooms on every unit, to help restore joy and laughter to these youngsters’ lives. During a time laden with fear, stress and uncertainty, these children will get to do what normal kids do in the summer.

From arts and crafts, to interactive games, Camp Week at CHOP activities are specially adapted to each unique hospital and clinic setting. All interactions are child-driven, restoring choice - something children undergoing medical treatment so often lack.

"What is so heartwarming about this program," says Carole Landis, "is that some of the Hole in the Wall Gang Hospital Outreach staff were once young patients here at CHOP and were participants of this program. Knowing how much it meant to laugh and smile and 'just be like other kids, again,' they were eager to give back as young adult volunteers."

The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp was founded in 1988 by Paul Neumann, who believed that every child - no matter their illness - should experience “a different kind of healing.” In addition to a medically supervised sleepover camp open for eight weeks in Connecticut, the camp runs other programs, including the hospital outreach program, that serve more than 20,000 kids and family members throughout the Northeast each year. To learn more, visit www.holeinthewallgang.org.

In 2015, the Carole Landis Foundation sponsored a teenage camper in the Hole in the Wall Gang’s Hero’s Journey program, a wilderness self-reliance camp for young people for have aged out of the Gang’s summer camp.