This year, an additional 1,000 children of deployed service members will attend Operation Purple Summer Camps free of charge thanks to a more than $1 million donation by the Sierra Club. The donation, announced today by Sierra Club�s Executive Director Carl Pope in Washington D.C., brings together two unlikely organizations, united in their mission to connect children with the outdoors.
The National Military Family Association�s (NMFA) Operation Purple Camp program offers summer camp experiences to military children free of charge. During their camping experience, campers are able to articulate, and therefore begin to learn to deal with, a barrage of negative emotions (anger, worry, fear, depression and stress) resulting from the deployment of one or both of their parents. The Sierra Club recognizes the important role nature plays in helping children heal, and in doing so, has chosen to support Operation Purple Summer Camps at this unprecedented level.
“The Sierra Club rarely sponsors another organization�s efforts, but we feel the Operation Purple Camp program is unique because of the opportunity it provides to connect children with the outdoors, offering a hands-on education on conservation and the opportunity to cope,” stated Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.
The Sierra Club�s donation will help to fight nature-deficit disorder. This condition refers to the absence of nature from childhood experiences, which plays a role in a child�s poor physical and mental health. It has been proven that outdoor experiences improve children�s academic achievement. A Sierra Club funded study by the California Department of Education found that students demonstrated at 27 percent increase in science test scores after a week-long outdoor experience.
This year, Operation Purple Summer Camps will host 3,500 deserving military children at 34 camps in 26 different states. Camps are open to children of personnel from all branches of the Uniformed Services. New to the Operation Purple Camp program this year is a camp dedicated exclusively for the children of wounded service members.
