Camp Opportunity is a nonprofit organization comprised of volunteers committed to making a difference in the lives of children who have experienced abuse and neglect. What began as a one-week overnight camp has grown into a year-round resource, providing a safe and supportive space where kids are free to simply be kids.
Summer Camp
Our current program includes an annual, week-long, overnight summer camp for up to 64 at-risk children, ages 8-11.
We hope to break the cycle of abuse by teaching our campers resilience, self-love, and essential life skills. Camp is a place where children can connect with nature to heal, grow, and create brighter futures with caring, reliable adults. Activities include swimming, crafts, hiking, team building activities, campfires, canoeing, and so much more.
In addition to these traditional camp activities, daily classes from our Journey Program focus on self-worth, emotional regulation, self-awareness, and self-esteem. This combination helps campers:
Increase acceptance of others
Create a self image as a person of worth
Grow leadership qualities
Set and pursue positive goals
Improve the ability to handle stress
Develop problem solving and decision making skills
Establish the ability to trust
YEAR ROUND ACTIVITIES
After summer camp, counselors are encouraged to stay connected with their campers throughout the year. We help them do this with various interim events such as:
A spring graduation picnic
Holiday gift deliveries
Monthly virtual cabin times
We are continuing to build our program in order to offer more resources to the children we serve throughout the year and after graduating from camp.
Meet the faces behind camp
While our campers are the main focus of Camp Opportunity, there are a lot of other people behind the scenes that make the magic happen! Take an inside look at what our campers, counselors, and other support staff experience when they attend camp!
HISTORY
Camp Opportunity was founded in 1985 by a group of dedicated unpaid volunteers. To this day, it relies almost exclusively on a community of people whose only compensation is the satisfaction of making a difference in the lives of the special children that we work with. In the organization’s early days, the volunteers were primarily from the same community of Dundalk, Maryland and recruited campers from their neighborhoods. Now, our community of volunteers come from all over the country.
