Rad Camp Inc

Our mission is RAD – Rising Above Disabilities! We offer awesome programs and camps for adults and children with developmental disabilities, much-deserved respite for their caregivers, and a life-changing volunteer experience for the local community.

In 2014, Katie Webb Brundige and Meghan Clem were driven by a passion and vision to establish a place where individuals with disabilities would find acceptance, caregivers would discover the support they desperately need, and members of the community would encounter a volunteer opportunity that would forever change their lives. With their combined experience of over 40 years serving the special needs community, they turned their vision into a reality by hosting RAD Camp’s first overnight experience and haven’t looked back since! RAD has blossomed into an awe-inspiring nonprofit organization almost entirely run by dedicated volunteers, hosting RAD Jr (ages 5-21) and RAD Camp (ages 22+) and welcoming over 200 campers every summer with open arms. With a remarkable one-to-one ratio between volunteers and campers, the camp boasts a team of 250+ counselors and around-the-clock medical teams who offer attentive care and unwavering enthusiasm throughout two, week-long sessions.

The ultimate goal of RAD Camp is to ensure campers have a fun, safe and empowering experience! We seek to improve self-confidence, courage, optimism and independence among both our campers and volunteers, and we measure impact by means of surveys, volunteer observations and evaluations, and program and medical staff reports.

On a macro level, the outcomes are threefold: empowering programs and camps for individuals with disabilities, a rare vacation for their caregivers and a transformational service opportunity for local youth. On a micro level, we strive to assist with the challenge of 92% of caregivers reporting that RAD Camp is the only option their camper has for an independent, overnight summer camp experience. That being said, we plan to continue to grow our Camp Family so we can offer a RAD community of support and friendship to campers and their caregivers as well as volunteers and their families.

This year we will be celebrating 10 years of Awesomeness and it has always been our goal to gift this experience to as many individuals as possible. However, for campers to have the summer camp experience of a lifetime and caregivers to receive the respite they deserve, we need to recruit volunteers. We are seeking support to fund our camp volunteer expenses aimed at shaping individuals into active community contributors. At RAD, we are a predominantly volunteer-run organization and maintain a 1:1 ratio, ensuring personalized attention from counselors to campers and exceptional enthusiasm from team leaders. In 2023, our goal of welcoming more campers home to camp was achieved with a 10% increase in camper attendance. Our goal to expand camp remains the same, but we need the help of volunteers to open this opportunity to more special needs families. Upon volunteer registration, we request a $30 fee, with RAD covering the remaining expenses, totaling upwards of $2,000 per volunteer for the entire week. This ensures our volunteers receive the same level of care as our campers, including 3 meals a day, 24 hour on-site nursing care, RAD Swag (themed T-shirt, water bottle and backpack), daily programs and activities, nightly team-building time, housing and security. Last year, over 700 volunteers donated their time and expertise to RAD, with 273 serving as camp counselors. We believe that, just like your mission, you contribute to creating compassionate and capable community individuals, as they spend a week putting other peoples’ needs before them and participating in something ‘bigger than themselves”. Your generosity will make a lasting impact in the lives of volunteers, campers and caregivers, and we appreciate your consideration.

We serve all ethnicities and developmental disabilities, including Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, and more. Based on the recent percentage camper breakdown, 2.07% identified as African American, 5.67% identified as Asian, 11.07% identified as Latino or Hispanic, and 39.28% identified as Caucasian. Between campers and volunteers, we are very fortunate to geographically welcome individuals from all over. Since we are based in Orange County, most of our participants are from Orange, LA, San Diego, and Riverside counties, but we even have participants who travel all the way from Massachusetts, Texas, and Mexico to join us! In 2023, we served 114 campers at RAD, 94 at Jr. and 700+ volunteers across both camps, who donated 45,328 hours of service! Approximately 85% of those participants are from Orange County.