PARENTS & THEIR KIDS —
The pioneering summer camp will hold its final Family Camp in Big Bear before shifting its mission toward HIV prevention for a new generation.
When Camp Laurel opened in 1994, children diagnosed with HIV faced tremendous uncertainty, with many not surviving into early childhood.
Fear and stigma were so intense that many families concealed a child’s diagnosis even from relatives. Against that backdrop, The Laurel Foundation created what it says was the nation’s first summer camp designed specifically for children living with HIV/AIDS — a place where they could swim, hike, make friends and sit around a campfire while receiving the medical and emotional support they needed.
This Labor Day weekend, some of those first campers will return to Big Bear Lake as adults — many with spouses, partners and children of their own.
Camp Laurel’s final Family Camp will be held Sept. 4 through Sept. 7 and is expected to bring together about 50 former campers and family members ranging in age from 3 to 45.
For founder and CEO Margot Andrew-Anderson, the gathering represents a milestone that would have been difficult to imagine three decades ago.
“It is a wonderful feeling to see these adults, once children in our program, return to camp to celebrate how far they, and modern medicine, have come,” Andrew-Anderson said. “I remember talking to these youth when they said they would never be able to have kids of their own. Now I look at them, thriving with a big family. My heart is filled with joy for them.”
The weekend will include traditional camp activities, reunion events, HIV education, a memorial for those who were lost, and a closing ceremony focused on how dramatically life with HIV has changed.
The Laurel Foundation says the gathering is both a celebration and a transition point as Camp Laurel prepares to redirect its mission.
A Diagnosis Transformed
For more than three decades, Camp Laurel has served children, youth and families living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.
The camp was created to give HIV-positive children something they often lacked in everyday life: a place where they could be children first.
Campers could swim, canoe, make friends and participate in traditional summer camp activities while medical professionals and trained staff were nearby.
Over time, treatment changed everything.
Advances in antiretroviral therapy, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and HIV education have made pediatric HIV far less common in the United States. Children living with the virus today can often manage it as a chronic condition rather than a fatal illness.
That progress has also changed who needs The Laurel Foundation most.
According to Lisa Stangl, an HIV specialist at UC San Diego who serves as a Laurel Foundation board member and volunteer medical director, nearly every camper in the early years was HIV-positive.
More recently, she said, only about two out of 50 campers were living with HIV.
“The numbers tell the story,” Stangl said. “When we started, nearly every camper who came through Camp Laurel was HIV-positive. In our most recent sessions, it was about two out of 50. That’s 34 years of medical progress.”
A New Focus on Prevention
Beginning in 2027, Camp Laurel plans to shift resources toward HIV prevention and education for young people considered most at risk of infection.
The Foundation says the move reflects changing public health realities.
While pediatric HIV has become increasingly rare, HIV remains a serious issue among adolescents and young adults. The Foundation cited federal data showing more than 6,400 young people ages 13 to 24 were diagnosed with HIV nationwide in 2022, and that young gay and bisexual men accounted for the overwhelming majority of new infections among youth in 2018.
Andrew-Anderson said the change should be viewed as an extension of the organization’s original mission.
“This new transition to serve key young populations at risk of HIV is a continuation of our mission, rather than an ending,” she said. “Our long-term vision was always to end HIV/AIDS, and now our work is to help educate the youth most at risk of HIV, to prevent the spread and ultimately end AIDS.”
The new prevention-focused program is expected to launch in summer 2027.
More Than a Farewell
The final Family Camp is not intended to be simply a reunion.
The Laurel Foundation hopes former campers and their families will strengthen peer connections, reflect on what the community has endured and help carry that sense of support forward.
For those who first arrived at Camp Laurel as children facing uncertainty, fear and stigma, the weekend offers a striking measure of just how much has changed.
They are no longer simply surviving.
Many are building families of their own.
And the camp created for children once given little reason to expect a long future is now changing its mission because those children grew up.
About The Laurel Foundation
The Laurel Foundation, based in Pasadena, was founded in 1992 by Margot Anderson. The nonprofit provides free programs serving at-promise youth, LGBTQ youth, transgender and gender-diverse youth, marginalized communities and young people considered at risk of HIV.
Its programs focus on mental health support, leadership development, educational enrichment, self-esteem and HIV prevention education.
(Jim Hampton is the Publisher and Editor of CityWatchLA.com. With over 40 years of experience in radio broadcasting, marketing, and content creation, Jim helped launch CityWatch online with founding editor Ken Draper more than two decades ago. He continues to guide the platform’s mission to provide independent news and opinion on Los Angeles government, policy, and civic life.)
