Aurora Day Camp

Registration is open all year round. To register your child, click the “Enroll Today” button on the top of this page.  By completing the initial application on CampMinder, you will be reserving your child(ren)’s place at camp for the summer. 

Feel free to contact us at registrar@auroradaycamp.org for help or additional information.

Our kids love camp so much that we just had to extend the fun beyond the summer.  During the school year, our camp hosts Aurora Fun-days — special activity days for our campers — along with many of the same staff who helped to make their summers so wonderful.  Our year-round program makes it possible for our campers to see their friends throughout the year while enjoying summer fun all year long.  These camp-like activity days include sports, crafts, as well as special shows & programs.  Some of the Fun-days are family events, where parents and children enjoy the fun-filled festivities together.  Free transportation is available if needed.  As with all our programs, Fun-days are offered to our families at no charge. 

Whenever we become aware that one of our campers is hospitalized, either camp counselors, staff or volunteers will visit with a few special surprises and a cheery smile.  They will sit at bedside and play with the child, share stories of camp days, and even give mom or dad a drop of respire so she or he can go home for a few hours, change clothes and maybe have a hot meal.  They continuity from camp to bedside helps our campers feel connected to their counselors, friends and fun, lessening the sense of isolation and fear that a hospital admission can bring with it.  Smiles from Aurora is just that — a burst of cheerfulness during the darkest times, bringing sights of relief to parents and sounds of laughter from their children.

Aurora Day Camp is staffed by counselors, specialists, assistants and volunteers specially trained prior to the camp’s opening. Our camp’s on-site Directors have extensive experience with children and camping, and our staff-to-camper ratio often exceeds 1:4, assuring that every need of our campers is accommodated. Special arrangements can be made for children requiring more extensive supervision.

When a child has cancer, it affects the entire family.  Siblings, too, may face tremendous challenges socially and recreationally as the family’s focus understandably turns to their brother’s or sister’s medical needs.  But at Aurora, siblings can play and interact as other brothers and sisters do; they are free to be with friends in a very normal, fun way while escaping the constant worry often found in a home with a chronically ill child. 

At Aurora, siblings learn to better understand and deal with their brother’s or sister’s illness and their own feelings. Siblings are welcome to attend whether or not the child with cancer is able to be a camper.

Ever see a child not want to leave a hospital because they’re having so much fun?  At Aurora on Wheels, it happens every day!  Aurora on Wheels provides a day filled with Aurora fun to children awaiting treatment in pediatric oncology units of participating hospitals.  Volunteers wheel a rainbow trunk bursting with toys, games and activities right into the hospitals and change what could have been a difficult day into a day of camp fun!

Our signature Wheels program currently brings fun to thousands of children in over 30 hospitals around the world.

Contact Susan Shields at susan@auroradaycamp.org for more information.