As the anniversary of the July 4, 2025, Camp Mystic flood approached, the Safe Summers Foundation launched its Safe Summers Parent Pledge, a nationwide platform inviting parents, families and community members to take an active role in helping keep children safe at summer camp.
The foundation was formerly known as the Campaign for Camp Safety, a coalition of “Heaven’s 27” parents who represent the 25 girls and two counselors who died in the Camp Mystic floods. The Safe Summers Foundation aims to keep kids safe through prevention, preparation and protection while preserving the joy and tradition of summer camp
In the year since this tragedy occurred, the coalition has worked to hold Camp Mystic accountable for the policy and procedural failures that allowed for the lethal conditions their daughters and camp counselors were subjected to. Numerous parents and related advocates have testified in legislative settings with the aim of strengthening laws regulating camp safety requirements. Many also have shared stories about their daughters’ lives, working to memorialize their legacies by protecting future children.
The pledge launched as the coalition entered its next chapter and is one of three initiatives for the foundation.
The Safe Summers Parent Pledge aims to equip and mobilize families to become active, informed partners in camp safety. While many assume their child’s summer camp has common-sense action plans for various safety risks, such as weather events like flash floods, many do not.
The pledge reads: “I commit to be an active partner in camp safety — before, during and after summer camp season. I will ask questions, review safety policies and share what I learn with other parents.”
The pledge is a simple commitment to ask questions about safety measures of camp partners and understand what good answers sound like. The pledge is paired with a free resource, “Know Before You Go: A Parent’s Guide to Camp Safety,” informed by subject matter experts to help families inquire about a camp’s safety plans, stay engaged before and during the camp season and support stronger safety practices across the summer camp ecosystem. It reflects a core belief of Safe Summers Foundation: That camps, parents and communities all have a role to play in creating a safety-first culture.
“The Safe Summers Parent Pledge is about helping families become informed, constructive partners in the camp safety conversation,” said Murphey Sears, chief development officer with Safe Summers Foundation. “Parents should know what questions to ask, and camps should be supported in putting strong safety practices in place. When families and camps work together, our children and youth are better protected.”
In addition to the pledge, the foundation also manages financial donations that help families, advocates and summer camps have adequate resources to do this work.
The Safe Summers Fund provides financial support to qualifying nonprofit camps to help with implementation of new safety standards, and the Safe Summers Action Fund brings advocates together to keep kids safe at summer camp through policy change and legislative reform.
This rebranding follows a year of significant progress for the coalition, for which national support has grown rapidly.
With the support of families, advocates, camp leaders and partners across the country, the Campaign for Camp Safety already has helped advance camp safety reforms in Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Missouri. Through its Safe Summers Fund, in partnership with The Safety Navigator, the organization granted $232,000 to nonprofit summer camps in Texas to implement new safety standards, serving more than 25,000 campers this year.
“What began as an urgent campaign in Texas has grown into a broader effort to make camp safer for every child,” said Blake Bonner, co-founder of the Safe Summers Foundation. “We believe deeply in summer camp and in the life-changing experiences it gives children. Our goal is to help ensure camps have the tools, resources and safety practices they need so when risks arise, staff are prepared, children are protected and families can send their children to camp with the same confidence as any other childcare center.”