Mission & History
Mission:
The mission of the Camp Surefire Foundation is to enrich and support the lives of children, families, and young adults living with T1D through year-round programming, community building and support, and overnight camp experiences.
History:
Camp Surefire started in 1999 as Rhode Island’s only camp for children and teens with Type 1 diabetes. In 2009, the non-profit who originally founded and ran the camp dissolved and the Camp Surefire Foundation was born. We hosted 44 campers that first summer with 95% of our campers hailing from Rhode Island. Over the years, we have continued to grow and evolve in a safe and sustainable way. In 2025, we had 95 campers registered for camp – more than double the number from 2009 and pulling from a much broader geographic area across New England.
Camp Surefire’s signature program – our week-long, overnight summer camp – is made possible by more than 85 volunteers who offer their time and talents to ensure a safe, fun, and memorable camp experience for our campers each summer. Camp Surefire has an extraordinarily strong retention rate for our campers and staff. Campers who started attending camp when they were 7 years old are now college graduates serving as counselors, program directors, and medical staff.
Camp Surefire offers a strong teaching program where local college students (pre-med, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, health sciences) can participate in hands-on service learning during camp week and learn first-hand about caring for children with T1D. Many of these students have come back to camp year after year and are now volunteering as med staff professionals. This opportunity has increased the number of local health professionals who have a better understanding of what a T1D diagnosis means to a family, the challenges that their patient may face, and the limitless potential of what their patient will be able to accomplish.
As the Camp Surefire Foundation has grown and evolved over the years, we offer a longer overnight camp experience and serve more individual campers. We have also added a teen camp weekend to our calendar, host camp reunion events during the year, and partner with other like-minded organizations to provide additional resources and engagement opportunities for the T1D community.