Customer Spotlight: Camp Hometown Heroes

This summer, Batzner had the opportunity to work with a great organization, Camp Hometown Heroes. Camp Hometown Heroes provides children and siblings of fallen U.S. Military members with a free week at its summer camp. In addition to typical fun camp activities like swimming, archery, and arts and crafts, campers have access to trained pediatric grief counselors, as well as the company of others who understand exactly what they are feeling. The combination of being able to openly discuss their experiences while having great times and making life-long friends has helped many cope with the tragedy of losing a loved one.

I spoke to Deb Paschke, the Co-Director of the camp, about this year’s session and what else can be done to support their mission. “The biggest development was that for the first time we were able to split the campers into two separate weekly sessions, which allowed more individual attention to be given to each child,” explained Deb. The success of this approach gives a positive outlook on potentially expanding further.

However, providing such a valuable service to even more children in the future is only possible with increased support from both companies and individuals. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to help out. No matter what line of work you are in, we recommend inquiring if there is anything your business can provide that would be beneficial. For companies like us, donating our services has a direct effect. For businesses in other industries that might not be as related, Deb recommended having office competitions to see who can raise or donate the most.

Individual opportunities for volunteering can be found at www.hometownheroes.org and on their Facebook page, as well as posts about needed donations for camp essentials (sleeping bags, bug spray, etc.). We here at Batzner highly recommend visiting both to learn more about this amazing organization!