Featured Charity: The Moyer Foundation

If you’ve followed Major League All-Star pitcher Jaime Moyer’s celebrated career, you know that he has been recognized as much for his work off the field as on.  In 2000, Jamie and his wife Karen established The Moyer Foundation.  Since then, the Foundation has raised more than $19 million to provide comfort and support to hundreds of programs that provide direct services and support to children enduring a time of profound physical, emotional, or financial distress. 

Their work strikes a very personal cord for me.  When my wife and her twin sister were 15 years old, they lost their dad to cancer.  Both described feeling isolated and lonely in the years following his death as they struggled to connect to kids their age that had experienced such a deep loss.

Stories like this led The Moyer Foundation to create Camp Erin, a bereavement camp for children and teens who have experienced the death of someone close to them.  I had tears in my eyes as I heard about the comfort and understanding Camp Erin participants find as they build friendships with other children who have gone through a similar season of loss.  You can see a few of these kids in this powerful 60 second video on the foundation’s YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CteEhsGsdmg

The weekend-long Camp Erin experiences are filled with traditional, fun, camp activities combined with grief education and emotional support -- facilitated by grief professionals and trained volunteers. These kids have the opportunity to address their feelings and memorialize their loved ones with other kids just like them.

Incredibly, Camp Erin is free to all campers.  The Moyer Foundation has established 36 of these camps in 23 states making it the largest network of bereavement camps in the United States.  Each Camp Erin is facilitated through a long term partnership with a local bereavement agency.  With the community’s support, The Moyer Foundation intends to raise funds to bring Camp Erin to as many as 60 cities nationwide.

Camp Erin is just one of several unique Moyer Foundation programs.  You can find more inspiring information and ways to support the organization by going to www.moyerfoundation.org.  We at TisBest congratulate The Moyer Foundation on 10 years of bringing comfort and support to children in distress.

Thanks for reading,
Chad Edwards – Charity and Community Relations Manager