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HAPPY CAMPER HANGOUTS Program brings camping, connection and confidence to kids STORY BY HALEY BEYER | PHOTOS COURTESY OF HAPPY CAMPER HANGOUTS
Happy Camper Hangouts is a program dedicated to bringing camping, connections and confidence into the lives of kids who do not have access to extracurricular activities.
H
appy Trails for Kids, a camp for boys and girls growing up in foster care, partnered up with Happy Camper Live, Comfort Cases and Alternative Family Services to start a program called Happy Camper Hangouts. This program is dedicated to bringing camping, connections and confidence into the lives of kids who do not have access to the same extracurricular activities most get to experience. The idea for the camp started in 1976 when a boy named David Abrams was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 2 years old. He survived cancer, but his treatments left him epileptic and with intellectual 30 PLAYA PLAYA VISTA VISTA DIRECT DIRECT || AUGUST AUGUST -- SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2021 2021 30
disabilities. Because of Abrams’ illness, no sleepaway camp would allow him to stay, so his mother, Pepper Edmiston, started her own called Camp Good Times, which was changed a year later to Happy Trails. Happy Trails hosted families who were raising seriously ill or incapacitated kids (either kids of their own or through foster care) for 13 years. David’s sister, Susan, became an attorney who represented kids in foster care. In 2009, she took over as president of Happy Trails and focused the mission of the program on kids in foster care with and without disabilities. From that point on, The Salters (David’s grandparents),
Abrams and Edmiston families continued to support Happy Trails for Kids, both to honor the memory of David and in recognition of the value camp holds for every child in need. Lindsay Elliott, executive director of Happy Trails for Kids, has been a longtime advocate for youth in foster care. She has worked at the Children’s Law Center of California since 2008, putting her effort into laws, policies and statewide coalitions to better support and prepare youth leaving the foster care system to live happy and healthy lives. She found the perfect place to continue pushing this mission forward. Happy Trails for Kids has returned
