The night before camp always feels unnerving.
You wonder who you’ll sit next to around the campfire, whether you’ll really go through with the zipline, if you’ll regret forgoing one last run-through before the talent show, and what camp stories you’ll tell when you return home.
This summer, more than 100 people, including 55 seniors and the team members beside them, felt that same restlessness the night before Camp Joy.
Hosted at True Friends Camp Courage, Camp Joy brought together residents from Lifespark Senior Living communities for a two-night camping-inspired experience: canoes on the lake, songs around the fire, bunking with cabinmates, fishing off the pier, and yes, even ziplining. There were s’mores, sticky-fingered and sometimes slightly burnt, exactly the way they’re supposed to be.
Although the allure of camp — its activities, amenities, and friendships — never fades with age, access to it often does… until Camp Joy gave seniors a seat around the fire.
How Camp Joy Began
Angie McAllister, Lifespark’s Director, Joyful Living & Community Well-Being, has carried one question with her for most of her career:
What if?
What if senior living activities were built around possibility instead of limitation?
What if age and diagnosis stopped being the things that decided what someone could do?
Camp Joy grew out of that question — and out of Angie’s refusal to stop asking it.
She first pitched the idea at a retreat for Lifespark’s Community Life Directors. They were enthusiastic about the idea, but equally worried about whether it was realistic to pull off.
It took almost one year of planning, but the team found a way. (A Lifespark core value!)
Buses were arranged. Campers were identified and invited. Sponsorships were secured. Every accommodation, every accessibility need, every meal and activity were mapped out well before anyone set foot on the grounds. By the time the first bus pulled into camp — the same camp where the idea was first introduced — a year’s worth of planning allowed two days to feel effortless.
Why Lifespark Created a Summer Camp for Seniors
People love the outdoors, the songs, the art projects, the friends made over a shared activity, at every stage of life. What changes with age isn’t the desire for these experiences — it’s how often we get the chance to have them. Opportunities like Camp Joy become rarer as people get older, even though the appeal never fades.
Research backs up the foundation of Camp Joy: happiness and strong relationships are linked to lower stress, better sleep, and a better quality of life overall. Getting outside, interrupting normal routines, making space for play, and staying connected to other people are some of the pillars we have for helping seniors age magnificently, and Camp Joy was built around all of them.
Residents from communities that had never crossed paths were trading stories. People who’d just met were cheering each other on during activities, offering a steady hand on the dock, laughing at the same jokes by the campfire. Camp has an inherent way of bringing people together like that.
Nancy, a Lifespark resident and one of this summer’s campers, put it best in the video above:
“I say that where I live, with Lifespark, we’re not a community, we’re family. But now that I came here for the last couple of days, I have a whole new, bigger family. It’s been a wonderful experience.”
The things that make summer camp special at 12 aren’t so different from the things that make it special at 82.
How Camp Joy Makes Camp Accessible For Every Senior
Transportation needs, mobility challenges, health considerations, and cost are all obstacles seniors face that can make experiences like this feel out of reach.
Camp Joy was designed to work around them.
True Friends Camp Courage offered accessible cabins, ramps, and pathways throughout the grounds, along with adaptive equipment that made activities possible for campers who might not have otherwise had the chance to try them. Pontoon boats designed to accommodate wheelchairs carried campers onto the lake, while specially adapted wheelchair-friendly harness systems took campers to the skies for ziplining.
Sponsors made the rest possible. New Horizon Foods, TSOLife, Healthcare Services Group, LTC REIT, Senior Care Communities, and Martin Brothers Distributing helped cover transportation, lodging, meals, and activities, so cost was never a barrier to entry. Camp Joy challenged the age-old story that age, diagnosis, or ability level sets the limit on what someone can do. Every resident had the chance to take part in as much — or as little — as felt right for them.
The Last Impact of Camp Joy
By the time the campers boarded the buses home, the atmosphere felt different.
They’d arrived as residents of different communities, most of them strangers to each other. They left as something closer to family — the kind Nancy talked about, and the kind that gets built fast when people share a campfire, a golf cart or boat ride, a try at archery, or a nervous first attempt at ziplining.
Some campers rediscovered hobbies they hadn’t touched in years.
Others crossed something off their long-held bucket lists.
One resident rode a zipline for the first time. When she reached the ground, she repeated, through tears, “I can’t believe I did it,” while staff members from her community reassured her and acknowledged her bravery. “We knew you could do it. We’re so proud of you.”
That moment illustrates what can happen when someone asks, “What if?”
Friendships form across communities, between residents and team members alike. Campers exchange words of encouragement, freely and often. Supportive environments cultivate the desire to try something new, and confidence grows in the moments that follow that leap of faith.
Camp Joy provided the space for it all — proof that summer camp has no age limit, and that when passion is fueled by purpose, we can help seniors not just age, but age magnificently.
