About Our Chapter
Mission
Through a five-day summer camp, Royal Family KIDS Camp of Austin fosters resiliency, self-esteem, hope and positive memories for area foster children who have experienced relational trauma. Our curriculum and activities use Trust-Based Relational Intervention so that campers experience life giving activities all week.
Vision
We cannot all foster or adopt, but we can all change a life! Royal Family KIDS of Austin promotes physical, emotional, and spiritual healing for child victims of neglect, abuse, and abandonment through a fun-filled five-day camp in a safe environment.
Our staff and volunteers are motivated by the example Christ set to share a common goal of caring for those Jesus referred to as “The least of these.”
Value
Our five-day camp creates a space where children entering or already in the child welfare system can learn to develop healthy relationships, build trust, and begin healing.
Austin’s Royal Family KIDS Camp History
Austin’s Royal Family KIDS Camp began in 1994, when the Church of Glad Tidings in Austin joined with the soon-to-become international Royal Family KIDS Camp organization. Jeanie and Calvin Estepp served as Camp Directors for Camp #19 for more than twenty years.
In 2018, Debbie Watson and Netra VonHeeder stepped into the role as Co-Directors of our Austin camp. Even through the challenges that Covid has put in our way, we still managed to provide a fun camp experience each year for our Austin-area foster kids, with a “Camp-in-a-Box” experience for every camper’s home in 2020 and a one-day camp in 2021. We were thrilled to bring back our normal five-day camp away from home in 2022 and the campers all had a great time. We believe 2023 will the best camp yet! Find a way to get involved with Royal Family KIDS Camp of Austin. You won’t regret it!
Check out our camp!
What’s camp like for our campers? See for yourself! Activities vary from year to year, but here are some glimpses of our most recent week-long camp.
Royal Family KIDS Camp of Austin
13,084
Foster Children
As of January 1, 2022, there were 13,084 foster children in Texas. Of those, 1748 were within the region served by our Royal Family KIDS Camp.
29
Years of RFK Austin
Our Austin camp was founded in 1994 and we held our first camp in 1995. Hundreds of volunteers have served - not only at camp but all year long.
1,420
Campers Served
Over the past 29 years we have served 1,390 campers at Royal Family KIDS Camp of Austin.
Same Heart, New Name, Bigger Impact.
We are now For The Children and here’s why.
For 30 years, volunteers, churches, businesses, local municipal partners and Royal Family Kids staff have dedicated their time, talent and treasures to help transform the lives of vulnerable children across the US, and world.
While RFK has formally overseen our camps and mentoring programs, the breadth of our work has evolved far beyond these two programs. Today we provide direct trauma intervention, advocacy, fostering, adoption, support to parents, and other crucial wraparound services.
While we acknowledge the expansion of our work across our 252 chapters, COVID-19 has profoundly increased the needs of children and families. Extreme gaps in fulfilling these needs cannot be overstated.
In order to address the systemic issues surrounding child welfare today, our organization must respond.
Consequently, as of November 2020, Royal Family KIDS, was officially renamed For The Children. This transition will bring clarity to new opportunities, from providing laptops and shoes to needy children, to assisting overburdened social workers, to providing temporary shelter.
The teaching and example of Jesus in caring for “the least of these” will remain our motivation. As For The Children, we are also eager to focus on the systemic issues facing children, around the globe.
