East Idaho News
@eastidnews·585K subscribers·7.7K videos
Hometown Helpers: camp director brings laughter and smiles to kids battling cancer, in remission
Posted
July 3, 2022
Views
1,542
Likes
121
Comments
14
Engagement
July 3, 2022
1,542
121
14
8.75%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
2:42Now Playing#EastIdahoNews
SWAN VALLEY -— EastIdahoNews.com is introducing you to Hometown Helpers in our community. We want to spotlight a firefighter, police officer, city worker, and others who quietly keep our cities and counties running.
This week, we are featuring Heather Olsen, the camp director at Camp Magical Moments. She has been the camp director since 2020.
Camp Magical Moments is a week-long free camp for kids battling cancer or who are in remission, so they can enjoy being a kid again for a little bit.
The camp happens once a year, every summer in June and is located at Hansen Guest Ranch in Swan Valley. This year’s camp was held from June 12-18 and had a spy theme.
“We do try to give them just a normal camp experience,” said Olsen. “They come from all over. The main group of kids do come from the Idaho area, some Utah, some in Wyoming but we do have a child from Texas this year and we have a child from California this year.”
The kids get to do activities such as paintballing, swimming, ziplining, horseback riding, arts and crafts, and rock climbing.
Olsen loves spending time with the kids every year and is proud of them.
“Just seeing the excitement in their eyes when they get to do the different things and seeing them accomplish the different goals and activities we set up for the week because for some of them, it is quite hard,” Olsen said. “Some of them after their cancer treatment—they have some disabilities and it makes it a little trickier to do some of these activities and they just complete it and finish it and it’s just great to see that.”
Olsen has been volunteering with Camp Magical Moments since 2006. She fell in love with it and has been coming back ever since.
“The kids are the best thing ever and they just get into your heart and you can’t help but come back,” she said, trying to hold back tears.
Unlike other camps, Olsen explained this one has a Garden of Angels.
“With the kids that have cancer, they don’t always win their battle. We do have a celebration of life that we do every year where we get to remember those that have passed away and talk about them and of course, that’s hard to see those kids not win their battle,” she said.
The kids that come to the camp, ages 7 to 13 years old, typically have 25 to 35 kids.
“We are pretty small and tight-knit so we just become a tight-knit family out here,” she said.
Olsen not only loves the kids but the volunteers that come back and help each year, who make it possible to run the camp. She said there are about 35 volunteers.
“We would love to have more volunteers. We’d love to extend our family,” she said.
The camp is run by donors and grants. Click here to learn more about Camp Magical Moments.
Olsen shows every day that she’s a Hometown Helper by making connections with kids battling cancer and helping bring a smile to their faces.
► Subscribe to East Idaho News
► Download our free app
► Like us on Facebook
► Follow us on Twitter
► Follow us on Instagram
► Get East Idaho News merch
► Subscribe to our free newsletter
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
