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A Fantastic Camp In Front Royal, Va.

Tammy Jenkins is the medical coordinator for Camp Fantastic.
Courtesy of Camp Fantastic
Tammy Jenkins is the medical coordinator for Camp Fantastic.

This month we are collecting your stories about the good things Americans are doing to make their community a better place. Some of your contributions will become blog posts and the project will end with a story that weaves together submissions to make a story of Americans by Americans for Americans.

Tammy Jenkins, a pediatric nurse at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, goes to camp every summer. Not as a camper, but as medical coordinator for Camp Fantastic — a summer spot in western Virginia for kids who are too sick to attend traditional camp. Many of the campers are living with active cancer and receiving chemotherapy and other advanced treatments.

Each year, Tammy takes on the monumental task of coordinating the vast and various medical services for all of the campers. Without those services, camp would not exist. This year's session in August marks Camp Fantastic's 30th anniversary.

Chris Barnett also volunteers at Camp Fantastic. He is assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco; he listens to KQED.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Christopher Barnett