Royal Family Kids lets kids be kids

EAU CLAIRE — Most children’s parents go out of their way to make their children feel special and loved, but unfortunately children in the foster system often miss out.

This is where Royal Family Kids steps in.

According to Royal Family’s website, the organization strives to stop the cycles of abuse, abandonment and neglect that children in the foster system may experience. One of the ways Royal Family does this is through a five-day camp for children ages six to 12. Children attending the camp are then treated like royalty — hence the name — as they experience a week where they can be a child and experience activities that include swimming, arts and crafts, singing, fishing, water fights, pontooning and more.

Royal Family Kids is a part of the nonprofit group For the Children. The concept got its start in California, and multiple chapters of Royal Family Kids have sprouted up throughout the country since. Five years ago, locals Jim and Theresa Johnson started a chapter in the Chippewa Valley. For the last two years See Donze has been one of the directors overseeing the local Royal Family Kids chapter along with her husband. Donze was enthusiastic to explain what the children will see once they get to camp.

“Once they get off the bus, we have a really big welcome red carpet just for them, and they then get off the bus and meet their mentors who are lined up in a row just to welcome everybody in,” she explained. The mentors well help children get acclimated to the camp and introduce them to the activities that the children can take part in for the next five days.

“We have events like the tea party. It’s not your average tea party; the kids dress up in fancy uniforms, or fancy or funny costumes. They come to camp and they come to the tea party treated like royalty,” she said.

“And then we also throw in ‘Everybody’s Birthday Party,’ where sometimes these kids have never really have had a birthday party in the foster home that they have been in,” Donze said. “So we try to make sure that we throw everybody a birthday party and get them birthday presents.

“It’s just really awesome to see their facial expression when they get the gift that they want, because they’ve never really gotten that (experience).”

The results of the camp have been noteworthy. Becca C. Johnson, author of the book “The Journey to Hope: Overcoming Abuse,” noted the effectiveness of camps like Royal Family Kids, stating that “one week at camp can be as effective as one year of counseling sessions.”

Donze agreed, telling the story of a child that was recently in Royal Family who kept running from mentors and the other children.

“We just kept showing him that he can be himself; that he can be a kid; that he can play whatever he wants, like play ball,” Donze said. “At the end of the week, he’s hugging everybody like he wants to stay — like he doesn’t want to go home — and he wants to come back the next year and that just shows a lot, from him coming in and not wanting to do anything and being closed off, to opening himself up.

“He knows that we’re there to support him, being his mentor and show him that love.”

Donze stated that she would love to expand the scope of the camp. She had mentioned the possibility of the camp experience expanding to covering a summer rather than just five days. She also wanted to expand into other counties, but resources have limited how much Royal Family’s local chapter can take on.

“Other counties have already reached out to us and we don’t have room. The camp only lets us take about 50 children,” explained Donze. “Plus, we’d have to find volunteers who would want to be mentors.”

She explained that she hopes that, through financial donations, the camp can expand and be able to help children from other areas for longer periods of time. But for now, the Donzes, along with the volunteers and mentors that make the camp a reality, feel proud to give children in the foster system experiences that they would otherwise not have.

“We just want to make things matter,” she said. “We’re doing this in our community to take these kids to camp. It means a lot to me — just to even impact these kids’ lives and to make sure that everybody comes together to show these kids love.”

More information on the organization can be found at rfkcv.forthechildren.info.