Sommer and Josh Houser, founders of a Texas-based nonprofit organization called Salute the Kids, have held over a dozen camps for military-connected children and their families across the country.
The Housers have hosted Salute the Kids Family Camps in Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona, with locations typically dependent on grant funding and donations from local organizations. But, outside of their home state of Texas, they have established Yelm as a fixture in their schedule.
For the fifth time, the Housers hosted the three-day Salute the Kids Pacific Northwest Family Camp at Cascades Camp & Conference Center in Yelm. The camp, which took place from Sept. 27 through Sept. 29, welcomes military-connected families and aims to offer them a transformative weekend retreat designed to foster reconnection, build resilience and offer traditional camping experiences.
The Housers team up with military veteran volunteers to offer activities such as tug-of-war, archery, canoeing, hayrides, arts and crafts, sports, campfires and therapeutic activities aimed at developing healthy coping skills.
The Dallas couple is not a military family themselves, but through working with military families in the past, they learned that children of military-connected families are often forgotten about when it comes to frequent relocations and coping with the deployment of a parent or guardian.
“We are civilians, and we surround ourselves with veterans and military families so that we can learn what the lifestyle is like. I tried to communicate with them, ask a lot of questions, observe and listen,” Sommer Houser said. “The military community has really embraced Salute the Kids, and they’ve been so wonderful in helping us to better understand their lifestyle so that we can provide the resources that they really need.”
The three-day camp, which hosted 12 families with children between 6 and 18, offered military children an opportunity to connect with counterparts who understand what they experience. One of the popular activities was a coloring page that allows campers to color in every state in which they have lived. Most of the children had lived in multiple states on opposite ends of the country; one camper had colored in six states.
In order to come up with activities that could help children cope with the frequent moves and the anxieties that come with them, the Housers worked with therapists. But, sometimes, learning from experience and listening to the needs of military children is the best teacher.
“One of the first camps we did, it was a Saturday morning and we were getting ready for families to come down. I’m always up early before the families, but there was a family already down at the dining hall,” Sommer said. “The kids wanted to get down there early to be sure they were able to do everything because, sometimes, some of the other activities that they have on base might give out 300 items when there are more than 300 kids on base. The kids were worried that there weren’t going to be enough signups for them to do everything.”
Josh Houser added that they choose the camp locations with that experience in mind so every child can have as much fun as possible.
“We’ve kept it in mind with every camp, and we make sure that if the camp location can’t accommodate all of the kids, then we don’t do that activity,” he said. “We make sure to pick the activities that they can man.”
Shelby and Andrew Petersen attended the Yelm camp last year and returned this fall to volunteer because of the impact it made on them and their two young children. The couple, originally from Savannah, Georgia, resides near Yelm as Andrew is stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord working for the U.S. Army at Madigan Army Medical Center. As he nears 12 years of service, he has traveled to Oklahoma, Texas, Korea, Colorado and Belgium.
The Petersens said their children couldn’t stop talking about how much fun they had at the Salute the Kids event since last year’s camp.
“They absolutely loved it. The entire past year, they’ve asked about it like, ‘Is Salute the Kids going to happen again? Are we going to do that again?’ ” Andrew Petersen said. “As I was driving in this year, they recognized the campground and were jumping and screaming in excitement in the car.”
Shelby Petersen added that the experience was healing for the whole family and they immediately planned to return once they heard the Salute the Kids camp was back in Yelm.
“In Belgium, it was a really small military community. There were only like 5,000 service members, so you knew everyone,” she said. “Going from that to one of the biggest bases was a little overwhelming, and we weren’t fully immersed in it with meeting families and making friends. This helped us reconnect with our family and connect with different families. I don’t feel like we needed it before we left, but when we came back, we were like, ‘Wow, we really did need that.’”
Another former participant, Caitlin McFall, returned as a volunteer photographer with her company, Drift Photo Co., and has worked with the Housers for four years.
The Housers dream of opening their own facility to host the Salute the Kids camps without worrying whether the campgrounds they rent can accommodate every family. While the idea is still in the dream phase, they have a vision of what their camp would offer.
“Having a camp facility of our own would allow us to reach more children and more families. We would really love to have a summer camp program for military kids where we could have large groups of kids come in and experience a longer, more immersive camp experience where we could focus more on healthy coping skills and allow kids to really get to know each other over a week-long experience,” Sommer Houser said. “We are very excited at the potential. Once we have our permanent camp, the impact is going to be incredible.”
To learn more about Salute the Kids, visit https://www.salutethekids.org/.
