LAPEER, Michigan-Campers on wooden benches under the shade of a large tree voice their feelings one by one-stressed, sad, anxious, depressed, mad, scared-and a drop of food color goes into clear water in a fishbowl.
By the time they are done, the water looks like root beer. But a few squirts of a healing solution make the water clean again, teaching the campers ages 6-17 at Camp Hope how to understand and express the emotions of grief and start to talk about the things they can do to feel better.
Camp Hope, founded by Wellspring Lutheran Services of Frankenmuth in 2004 and funded by donors, helps kids who have lost a loved one process their grief through all of the familiar fun and comforts of camp-swimming, canoeing, arts and crafts, games and s'mores-along with therapeutic activities like the fishbowl of feelings. Leaders say the experience changes the trajectory of the kids' lives.
In 2006, a partnership with the University of Michigan-Flint began with an internship program, first with nursing students and last year switching to psychology students. With about 10 UM-Flint students each year, they have volunteered nearly 20,000 hours to Camp Hope over the past 19 years as they've helped more than 880 young campers adjust to loss.
The internship provides an opportunity for students to apply their learning to real-world situations, encouraging them to use their knowledge and critical thinking skills to improve situations for the grieving children. Since grief is universal, psychology students pursuing careers from law and psychology to human resource management and sales will benefit from learning about grief and coping mechanisms.
The experience interning at Camp Hope this summer convinced Kaitlin Cruppenink, a senior majoring in psychology at UM-Flint, that she wants to work with children as part of her career after graduation.
"I always have had an interest in working with children, but interning at Camp Hope solidified for me the idea that children do not always have the resources or abilities needed to take control of their own healing and trauma," Cruppenink said. "Not properly dealing with trauma stemming from grief, or whatever it may be, can lead to poor coping and maladaptive behaviors as adults."
What started as a day camp with just 20 campers has become a three-day, two-night camp with about 40 campers each August, and there's always a waitlist. Maureen Tippen, a former associate professor at UM-Flint's School of Nursing, collaborated with Wellspring to offer the camp experience as an internship opportunity for nursing students.
When Tippen retired in 2023, psychology professor Susan Gano-Phillips developed an internship for her students that started a few weeks before camp so they could create therapeutic activities for the campers. The psychology interns created "Moving Forward" grief toolkits for the campers to take home after camp. Interns also developed resource lists of books, videos and podcasts about grief and recovery for children, teens and their parents.
Ricco Ruiz took over this summer as bereavement coordinator for the hospice team at Wellspring and Camp Hope director from Jane Olivier, who retired in July. He had his first experience with the camp while in high school. He donated proceeds from a concert performance at school to Wellspring, where his mom worked. Later, he received a thank you and an invitation to volunteer as a camp counselor, which he did in 2005 after graduation.
Over the next 20 years, Ruiz studied social work and was a pastor in California but always came back to Michigan to volunteer at Camp Hope. When Olivier announced her retirement, he was tapped to lead the camp.
The camp is a critical part of the bereavement services offered by the hospice program at Wellspring. Ruiz said that kids are also equipped with tools to "walk their grief journey." The camp teaches them how to connect with support systems at home, at school and in the community.
"A large part of what we do here at Camp Hope is not just the expression of feelings and emotions, but it's also teaching kids about self-care, teaching them about the importance of peace, relaxation, meditation and mindfulness," he said. "So it's the fun stuff with a little bit of the tearfulness involved, but it often manifests itself in just a feeling of a fun, fun weekend and they go home and they just feel relieved."
Other camp activities include:
- Printing photos on pillow covers of each camper's loved one that they use to share their memories with others, then stuff and decorate the pillow to take home.
- Releasing balloons representing loved ones
- Swimming, canoeing, campfire and s'mores
- Music therapy
- Sack races
- Making stress balls and other crafts
- Worry stones and grief Jenga
The psychology students add a new dimension for campers as they understand human development and emotions.
"And so this is a huge learning opportunity, I know for them, but it's a huge blessing to us," Ruiz said. "They bring such experience and their hearts in a special way. So I'm very grateful for them every year."
Susan Gano-Phillips, a UM-Flint professor who worked with 11 camp counselor student interns last year, was a Fulbright Scholar in Namibia this year so Amanda Smith, a lecturer in psychology at UM-Flint, worked with students in her stead.
"And so what I really wanted out of this experience is to watch burgeoning psychologists really take a huge step in their growth," Smith said. "Every psychology student I've ever talked to that is almost graduating does not feel prepared for graduation or whatever the next step is. And internships are always important for that because it is that hands-on experience that people imagine, but they don't always get."
Smith said she wanted to attend camp to support students as they attempted something unfamiliar with huge responsibility.
"It's changing the trajectory of these children's lives. They could go down very, very dark roads, and I mean, this experience has the potential to change the way that they cope so that they won't do the destructive behaviors that we know people engage in when they're hurting," Smith said.
Working with the camp's youngest children, Cruppenink said the combination of the play and grief work aspects of the camp has had a significant effect on them.
"The activities are structured to be both fun and meaningful," she said. "Being able to share the hard, complex feelings about your loved one, then also expressing them in fun ways like the M&M game or making balloon stress balls, makes it less likely that you're completely overwhelmed with the emotions of grief."
Some of the kids share their feelings more easily than others, Cruppenink said. But even the ones who aren't ready to open up can take some comfort and solace from those who are sharing by knowing that they aren't alone in what can feel like a "unique, only happening to me" experience. When kids/people feel as if they are alone in grieving experiences, it can lead to further social isolation and later behavioral issues.
