Giving Hope, Strength, and Joy to Children with Cancer and their Siblings

Our Summer Camp Season is seven weeks. Families can send their campers to camp for as little as a day or as much as the entire seven week summer. You sign up for the time that best suits your family’s needs.

As a full-summer day camp, we are open Monday through Friday, from approximately 9:30am–3:45pm (excluding transportation times). Special accommodations can easily be made depending on when a child is able to attend. At Horizon, we recognize that children may not be able to attend camp every day, and so our program is designed to assure that no one “misses out” because of an absence. To accommodate working parents, extended hours are available from around 7:30am to as late as 6:30pm.

Enrollment is open. Please contact us at registrar@horizondaycamp.org for questions, help or additional information.

Our kids love camp so much that we just had to extend the fun beyond the summer. During the school year, our camp hosts Horizon Fun-days — special activity days for our campers — along with many of the same staff who helped to make their summers so wonderful. Our year-round program makes it possible for our campers to see their friends throughout the year while enjoying summer fun all year long. These camp-like activity days include sports, crafts, as well as special shows & programs. Some of the Fun-days are family events, where parents and children enjoy the fun-filled festivities together. Free transportation is available if needed. As with all our programs, Fun-days are offered to our families at no charge.

Whenever we become aware that one of our campers is hospitalized, either camp counselors, staff or volunteers will visit with a few special surprises and a cheery smile. They will sit at bedside and play with the child, share stories of camp days, and even give mom or dad a drop of respite so she or he can go home for a few hours, change clothes and maybe have a hot meal. They continuity from camp to bedside helps our campers feel connected to their counselors, friends and fun, lessening the sense of isolation and fear that a hospital admission can bring with it. Smiles from Horizon is just that — a burst of cheerfulness during the darkest times, bringing sights of relief to parents and sounds of laughter from their children.

Horizon Day Camp-Baltimore is staffed by counselors, specialists, assistants and volunteers specially trained prior to the camp’s opening. Our camp’s on-site Directors have extensive experience with children and camping, and our staff-to-camper ratio often exceeds 1:4, assuring that every need of our campers is accommodated. Special arrangements can be made for children requiring more extensive supervision.

When a child has cancer, it affects the entire family. Siblings, too, may face tremendous challenges socially and recreationally as the family’s focus understandably turns to their brother’s or sister’s medical needs. But at Horizon, siblings can play and interact as other brothers and sisters do; they are free to be with friends in a very normal, fun way while escaping the constant worry often found in a home with a chronically ill child.

At Horizon, siblings learn to better understand and deal with their brother’s or sister’s illness and their own feelings. Siblings are welcome to attend whether or not the child with cancer is able to be a camper.

Horizon Day Camp has a private, air-conditioned Wellness Center and is supported by on-site pediatric oncology nurses and a medical director on call. Most medications can be easily administered, and ample indoor areas are provided for children to just “cool down.” In the unlikely event of an emergency during the camp day, transportation by ambulance is provided.

Horizon Day Camp-Baltimore is within driving distance of its local communities. We encourage parents to drive their children to and from camp in order to limit their time on buses and keep them in the most comfortable environment. If driving is not an option, free bus transportation is available from select locations. In unique circumstances, transportation arrangements can be worked out to accommodate the special needs of a family.

Ever see a child not want to leave a hospital because they’re having so much fun? At Horizon on Wheels, it happens every day! Horizon on Wheels provides a day filled with Horizon fun to children awaiting treatment in pediatric oncology units of participating hospitals. Volunteers wheel a rainbow trunk bursting with toys, games and activities right into the hospitals and change what could have been a difficult day into a day of camp fun!

Our signature Wheels program currently brings fun to thousands of children in over 30 hospitals around the world.
Contact Fran, our Horizon on Wheels Coordinator at fran@horizondaycamp.org