Stack the Caps, an event created at Camp Starlight in Pennsylvania to honor a young camper who passed from cancer, is being organized by the Miller Family, owners of Camps Starlight and Weequahic and Palm Beach Gardens residents, at The Benjamin School Lower and Middle Schools, 11000 Ellison Wilson Rd. North Palm Beach campus on November 13, 2009 at 8:30 a.m.
The middle school students at The Benjamin School will attempt to create a stack of caps more than 10 feet high to donate to organizations in South Florida which treat children with cancer.
The initial Stack the Caps event was created in honor of Brielle Namer, a Livingston, N.J. 16-year-old who passed from Ewing's sarcoma, a type of
bone cancer that primarily affects children and young adults. It is a rare type of cancer, affecting about 250 children in the United States each year. Ewing's sarcoma is most often diagnosed in adolescents between the ages of 10 and 20 and is almost always fatal.
The Millers, owners of Camp Starlight and Camp Weequahic in Pennsylvania, wanted to do something to honor Namer's memory, so each summer campers from across the United States bring an unused baseball cap to see how high they could stack them at a Camp Starlight event. The caps are then donated to different cancer treatment centers across the United States for children who are undergoing chemotherapy. The Miller's daughter, Hayley and her cousin Jamie Corey, both 10
th grade Benjamin High School students decided to create a national Stack the Caps program so schools and organizations across the country can hold their own Stack the Caps event and donate the caps to local hospitals. Their goal is to stack one mile of caps for kids with cancer. Any high school or middle school students interested in helping to achieve this goal by hosting a Stack the Cap event should contact the Millers through their website Stackthecaps.com. Once registered, hosts will be provided with ongoing support, including a customized banner for their school or organization and stickers for each of the participants. Stack the Caps events can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook. Another Stack the Caps event will be hosted locally by Camp Starlight's staff member and St. Andrews School 4
th grade teacher, Jason Glick. Jason recently celebrated his 20
th summer at Camp Starlight at which he started there as a camper and is now the Boys Head Counselor.
"Since the caps are coming from various parts of the country and being sent to other areas of the country, no two events will be the same," explained David Miller. "At Camp Starlight we had 520 kids from all over the United States and over 200 staff from all over the world, so we collected caps from places and teams that some kids never heard of like the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankee cap," he added. In the summer of 2009, Camp Starlight stacked caps 10 feet high. In 2008, Camp Starlight had 550 kids and 200 staff lined up along the entire recreation hall and they stacked the caps until they reached 16 feet high. They also sold specially designed Stack the Cap caps on visiting day for a donation and every parent bought one, said Miller. Camp Starlight sold 700 caps and raised approximately $3,500 which was donated to the Brielle Namer Scholarship Fund in New Jersey. Allison Miller personally delivered half the caps to Memorial Sloane Kettering in New York City and the other half were donated to Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
Every Memorial Day weekend, the Millers and their team of teachers/camps counselors all head up to the endless mountains of Pennsylvania to direct and work at the two summer camps which together annually host approximately 800 kids and employees along with more than 500 staff members.
The two camps are brother/sister camps which focus on sports, water sports, theatre, arts and outdoor adventure programs on hundreds of acres in the beautiful endless mountain region of northeast Pennsylvania, just two and a half hours from New York City. Founded in 1947, Camp Starlight is a traditional full-season, seven-week residential summer camp which is built on a 385-acre campus. Each year, Camp Starlight welcomes 260 boys and 260 girls ranging in age from seven to 15. The brother/sister program allows the boys and girls to enjoy separate activities during the day while still being together as a family for meals and evening programs. Camp Weequahic is a traditional residential camp program where campers may come for two three- week sessions or stay for all six with over 55 years of history and tradition on over 100 acres. Each camp has its own spring-fed lake. The classic summer camp experience at Weequahic includes top-notch instruction in athletics, water sports, theatre, arts and adventure for approximately 180 kids per session.
"Many Florida kids travel to camp together with our staff on chaperoned flights and return to these camps year after year where they make friendships which last a lifetime," said Allison Miller, who owns and directs the camps with her husband, David. She notes that many of them are counting down the days until camp starts. Miller even has an eager group of Florida students ready to take the plunge this year as camp counselors.
So when the parents of two, daughter Hayley is fifteen and son Griffin is eight, are not driving their kids to The Benjamin School or sponsoring Palm Beach Gardens Youth Soccer League or organizing community events such as the recent "Movie Under the Stars" at the school, they are planning, building, maintaining and organizing a fun and active summer for about 800 kids, many from Palm Beach County. For additional information please call Camp Starlight in Palm Beach Gardens at (877) 875-3971 or visit Stackthecaps.com.