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Grandparents create next-level at-home 'summer camp' for their visiting grandkids

Now we all wanna stay at Camp OmaPapa.

Photo credit: Canva

Who doesn't wanna stay at Camp OmaPapa?!

In a sea of unsavory stories featuring toxic, uninvolved grandparents out there on the interwebs, stories like this feel all the more uplifting and wholesome.

Enter Paula, or “Oma,” as she’s affectionately known as by her grandkids. In a clip posted to TikTok, we learn that she and her husband, “Papa”, not only agreed to watch the grandchildren—aged 5, 4 and 2— for nine days while their adult children celebrated their anniversary, they fill the stay with fun activities in a project they aptly named “Camp OmaPapa.”

Seriously, no stone was left unturned while dreaming up this next-level camp. To stoke some excitement, Paula had mailed the kiddos an official invitation to Camp Oma Papa, telling them what to bring and what type of activities to look forward to.

@pbev12

Camp OmaPapa begins✨ #summercamp #campomapapa #oma #papa #grandkids #welcomecampers


The carefully curated list of activities (ice cream on Sunday, zoo on Wednesday, scooter ride on Monday, etc.) lived on one wall, while another hall had a single blue frame out of painter’s tape that would feature that day’s schedule—providing a perfect balance of structure and free play that all kids need, even in the summertime.

They even created official Camp OmaPapa shirts for their little campers, along with a ”Welcome to Camp OmaPapa” ushering them in. How cute is that?! Talk about going all out.

Needless to say, viewers were impressed…if not a little jealous.

“They don’t make grandparents like this anymore, ” noted one person

“As a mom with no village this is amazing, our kids and grandkids are lucky to have you,” lamented another.

Still a third wrote, “My parents have never even taken my kids out for an ice cream cone. This is so awesome.”

In a response to the aforementioned comment, Paula reveals that her own kids had grandparents that “didn’t want anything to do with them,“ which taught her what kind of grandparent she didn’t want to be.

However, several others chimed in with similar “camps” created by other similarly awesome grandparents.

“Yes! My mom and I do this every year but it’s ‘cousin camp.’ We all look forward to it every year!"

“My mom has a ‘bidi bootcamp.’ Originally it was because every time the grands went to bidi’s house they learned something new. Potty training, paci withdrawal, bottle to cup, etc…The name ‘bidi’s bootcamp’ is just for fun now.”

And of course, several were asking if Camp OmaPapa would be accepting new campers next year—kids and adults alike.

For those next-level grandparents wanting to create something like this for their own grandkids, Paula has more detailed videos breaking down what the kids did each day. Here are a few samples:

@pbev12

Day 1 of Camp OmaPapa✨ #summercamp #campomapapa #oma #kazoo #pinkponyclub #babyshark #scooter #artsandcrafts #pacman


@pbev12

Water Day at Camp OmaPapa✨ #summercamp #campomapapa #oma #papa #artsandcrafts #waterday #gamenight


@pbev12

Day 3 in the books! Stay tuned for Day 4 of Camp OmaPapa✨ #summercamp #campomapapa #columbuszoo #jerseymikes #artsandcrafts #smores #oma #papa @jerseymikes @Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

One important thing to note: it’s pretty evident that Camp OmaPapa isn’t just creating core memories for the kiddos, but for Oma and Papa as well. All while giving parents the village they so desperately need. All in all, it’s a pretty beautiful thing to see.

Check out more things OmaPapa-related by giving Paula a follow on TikTok.

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Kids with cancer aren't their illnesses. This camp allows them to be so much more.

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Northwestern Mutual

It was “Camplympics” and Chris was a finalist in the pool-noodle javelin toss.

A camper participates in the javelin event during Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times’ “Camplympics." Photo via Dean Reyes/Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

Chris is blind, the result of eye cancer, but that wasn't stopping him from participating in this fun event at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times.

His camp counselor, Bear, was standing behind the rings, snapping his fingers so that Chris could hear the distance and area where he was to toss the javelin.

“The whole dining hall was quiet,” says Fatima Djelmane, development director of the camp. “It was close to 200 people there, between the campers and the counselors, and it was just completely silent.”

Everyone was waiting with bated breath. Chris threw the javelin three times through the hoops.

The crowd roared. Chris had just won the bronze medal.

“It was a huge moment, where everyone was shouting and so excited and crying because they had witnessed something amazing,” Djelmane says. “It just shows the partnership between [him] and his counselor and the support that he received from the whole community.”

That’s what makes this camp so great. We might take "just being a kid" for granted, but they don't.  

The Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times in Mountain Center, California. Photo via Dean Reyes/Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

Located in Mountain Center, California, the camp opens its doors, free of cost, to any child who has or has had cancer in their lifetime. Campers can bring a sibling along too, and the camp also offers a Family Camp program for first-time campers so they can bring their whole families.

Because families and siblings come to the camp together, counselors often don’t know which children have cancer and which don’t.

Their illnesses are not the focus and that, says Jessica Henke, a volunteer camp counselor, is a great thing for both children with cancer and their entire families.

Photo via Josh Pham/Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

Kids are encouraged to explore who they are and what they love beyond medical limitations and the dreaded "c-word."

Activities at the camp include everything any other summer camp might have: archery, horseback riding, rock climbing, swimming, arts and crafts, and more.

Nights are filled with campfires, dances, and special cabin activities planned by the counselors.

One of the most popular activities at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times is the 50-foot rock wall. Photo via Ashok Padinjatiyaduth/Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

And, while the counselors may be made aware of some campers’ limitations, campers are still encouraged to try every activity offered at Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times.

Photo via Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

“No matter anyone’s physical limitations, the staff and the volunteers are trained so that they can help everyone participate in everything,” Henke explains. “These kids are given a lot of chances at camp that they may not be given down the mountain.”

Getting lost in play and forgetting that they are sick, even if it's just for a little while, means everything.

“There’s no ‘oh, you’re the kid with cancer.’ It’s not part of their identity anymore, and then they’re able to discover who they are outside of that label of cancer," Djelmane says.

Campers enjoying some face-painting. Photo via Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

Life can also be tough for siblings, who sometimes don't get as much attention. Fortunately, they are also encouraged to join in on the fun.

“Cancer lives in the body of one child, but it affects the entire family,” Djelmane says.

Illness changes family dynamics, creates new responsibilities, and forces kids to grow up way too quickly. Cancer treatment is also a long process. It often takes years — years where the parents are not able to be fully present for the sibling who isn’t diagnosed with cancer.

As a result, siblings of children with cancer often experience fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, guilt, and grief. And both the patient and the sibling may miss out on normal childhood experiences, like sports and socializing with other children.

Henke and some of the campers. Image via Josh Pham.

Getting siblings and family members out of the house and letting them know that it's OK to step out of the role of caretaker can go a long way.

"This is camp. You can be yourself. We will accept you for any way you are. If you want to be loud, be loud! Be crazy!" Henke told one of her campers.

Counselors are trained to treat all kids the same — and this can make a big difference.

Jessica Henke shows off her silly side with a camper and a fellow counselor. Photo via Josh Pham.

“It really boosts their self-esteem, their sense of self-identity, and their sense of independence, especially for the patient, who is often coddled because the parents are trying to do everything for them,” Djelmane said.

“When they’re at camp, they’re really pushed to develop leadership skills and to take on a lot of responsibility not only for themselves, but for the entire group.”

Photo via Josh Pham/Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times/Facebook.

"A lot of people that I meet, when I tell them about my job, they say, 'Oh, it must be so sad,'" says Djelmane.

"But actually, it’s one of the most inspiring and beautiful places I’ve ever been to. There’s a culture of passion and love that’s really palpable at camp."

"We have volunteers who have been coming for 35 years,” she continues. “It’s really an amazing community. The counselors are so connected to each other and to the campers.”

Volunteer Scott Cohen and a camper. Image courtesy of Scott Cohen.

One of those repeat volunteers is Scott Cohen, an employee of Northwestern Mutual and active supporter of the company’s Childhood Cancer Program that has contributed over $15 million to the cause. He's used his vacation time to volunteer at the camp for the last 11 years.

“I come back more refreshed from camp than if I were to go on a real vacation,” he says. “There’s something about being with these kids. I just feel so good about the time we spend together.”

And volunteers often recruit others to the camp because they find the experience so rewarding. Henke, for example, first learned about the camp when her boyfriend told her what an amazing time he had as a camp counselor, so she decided to become a counselor herself.

Jessica Henke dances with one of her campers at a camp dance. Photo via Josh Pham.

“I learned to be intentional and to be present in the moment,” Henke says of her experience. “You can become super close with people in the matter of a few days or hours. I made some really good friends there.”

It just goes to show that giving back to the community can do just as much good for the giver as it does for the receiver.

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This free camp is helping military kids who've paid the highest price learn to be kids.

For years, 9-year-old Miriam Gaston watched her dad Shafer leave home for months at a time to serve as an officer on a submarine.

Last July, she left home for the first time herself. She was going to summer camp.

"It was sort of scary because it was my first sleepaway thing for over 24 hours, and so I was sort of freaking out," she explains.

Miriam Gaston gets her face painted at camp. Photo via Tara Gaston.

For Miriam's mom Tara, the experience of sending her child away to summer camp was both totally completely new — and distressingly familiar.

Just like when her spouse was away, Tara wouldn't see her daughter when she woke up in the morning and when she went to sleep. She wouldn't know if Miriam was sad, got in trouble, or missed home.

For eight days, her 9-year-old would be on her own.

"I had to walk away slowly," Tara recalls, of dropping Miriam off. "And I went to my car and sat there for a second. But then I drove away."

Welcome to Camp Corral.

As she headed off to the dining area to make a name tag, Miriam became one of over 3,000 military kids each year who experience a week summer camp provided free of charge for children of injured, ill, or fallen service members or veterans.

It's a group that includes Miriam's dad — who was medically discharged from the Navy after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2015 — and the parents of over 90% of her fellow campers.

The Camp Corral program, established in 2010 by Golden Corral restaurants founder James Maynard and his daughter Easter, takes place at 22 partner camps across the country.

The restaurant chain provides partial funding for the camps. Organizations, including Disabled American Veterans, and individual donors provide the rest.

A Camp Corral camper climbs a ropes course. Photo via Camp Corral.

Some camps have zip lines and ropes courses. Others have rock walls or lakes for boating.

For many campers, the particular activities are less important than the bonds they form with their fellow campers who share many of their same life experiences.

"Everybody there in their cabin, everybody there in their camp, is coming from a similar situation to what they are," explains Leigh Longino, Camp Corral's chief operations officer.

Campers at Camp Corral participate in a flag retirement ceremony. Photo via Camp Corral.

While thousands of organizations support military and veterans in the United States, few exclusively serve their children.

Longino, along with her small staff and a few dozen volunteers, works to provide a safe, healing, fun environment for the thousands of kids who were "drafted" into service, especially as America's overseas conflicts continue to evolve deep into their second decade.

"We are 16 years post-9/11, and this is our population. These are children we’ve got to take care of," Longino says.

The camp gives campers, especially those who have taken on the role of caregiver to a younger sibling while an able-bodied parent takes care of a disabled one, a place to "just to be kids," Longino explains. For Miriam, that meant writing a theme song for her cabin, kayaking, decorating her bunk, and covering her counselors with oobleck.

But it was a dance that was the highlight of Miriam's week.

"Everybody was clapping and jumping, and I’m pretty sure across the lake or river or whatever, the people in the city could hear us," she says.

For military parents, particularly those who have dealt with trauma, sending a child to sleepaway camp can trigger a host of fears, which the camp works to address.

"A parent who obviously has seen their spouse go away to war and come back differently, so now you’re saying, 'You want me to send my child to camp and are they going to come back differently?'" Longino says, of the fears she hears from parents. "We say, 'They’re going to come back better.'"

That means training staff, from directors to counselors, on handling issues that can crop up among the children of wounded, ill, or fallen service members and veterans — including separation anxiety and more severe homesickness.

Photo via Camp Corral.

It also means building in time for older siblings — who frequently take on a quasi-parental role at home — to spend time and counsel their younger brothers and sisters.

Even at camp, however, older brothers, like Miriam's, who also attends Camp Corral, will still be older brothers.

"Every time I saw him, I tried to hug him, but he’d shove me off to go hang out with his friends. Typical older brother stuff," Miriam says.

Camp Corral is also designed to give parents, who have spent many months apart over the course of their relationship, valuable time to reconnect.

"With submarines, it’s not so much the distance, it’s that there’s a lot of time that you can’t talk to them," Tara says.

Tara and Shafer spent Miriam's week at camp helping their in-laws clean out their apartment and preparing to move north to Saratoga Springs. For a family in transition, the camp's lack of a price tag gave them much-needed flexibility to plan the rest of their lives together.

"At that time, we weren’t sure what our income would be, where we would be living, what’s going on. It was very helpful to be able to give them that and not have to worry," she says.

Like most kids, Miriam's last day of camp was the exact opposite of the first.

"She and her friends were hanging out, and she was like, ‘Do we have to go now?'" Tara says.

It was a decision Miriam didn't want to make.

"I was sort of torn. Because if I didn’t leave, I would probably be abandoned by everybody, and there would be storms and I would probably starve," Miriam laments. "But if I did leave, I probably wouldn’t see anybody at the camp again."

As with any camp, Camp Corral is more about about friendships than archery — and more about transforming shy campers, who have already shouldered heavier burdens than most of their peers, into independent young adults.

Photo via Camp Corral.

"A great camp can run a camp in a parking lot," Longino says.

Camp Corral is much more elaborate than a parking lot. And it's free. But it doesn't come at no cost for families like the Gastons, who, for years, sacrificed their stability, health, and childhoods in service to their country.

They've already paid for it.

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19 reasons grown up summer camp is the vacation you didn't know you needed.

Cameron McCoy is a 41-year-old higher-education worker who recently decided he needed a break.

"We really live in work-life integration," he told Upworthy. "There's no such thing as balance anymore."

So he decided to do something that might sound a little unusual: He went to adult summer camp.

Photo via Camp No Counselors, used with permission.

A million people in the U.S. go to adult summer camps every year, putting down their cellphones and turning to archery, water sports, and, depending on which camp they attend, a few cocktails to rediscover a world of few responsibilities.

"[Adult summer camp] was an opportunity to not have any technology with me," Cameron explained. "To not be concerned about time. Really, just to get more centered and to spend some time with other people going through the same situation."

Here are 19 reasons why summer camp for grown-ups totally rocks:

1. The first rule of summer camp: There will be dance parties.

Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

2. And there's no age limit! Because you're never too old for a limbo competition.


Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

3. You can go alone or with friends. It's all good.

Photo via Soul Camp, used with permission.

4. A lot of camps are strictly phones down. Or, at the very least, they have terrible service.

Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

5. That's just part of what makes them so great.

"It's a disconnection from work and our phones and technology. It forces people to get out of their comfort zones," Adam Tichauer, founder of Camp No Counselors, told Upworthy. "When you see people in line for the bathroom, they're actually talking to each other."

Photo via Camp No Counselors, used with permission.

6. The science backs it up: Going away to camp is probably a really good thing for your mental health.

Researchers at Kansas State University found that having strict nonworking time or "psychological detachment" can be just the thing we need to keep from burning out. At a resort with great cell service and free Wi-Fi, the temptation to "just check in" can be pretty strong. At adult summer camp, most campers leave their phones in their bunk (if they're allowed to even use it at all).

And when you're finally ready to get back to the grind? You'll probably be a little more productive after unplugging for a few days.

Photo via Camp No Counselors, used with permission.

7. For Paige, a 29-year-old from L.A. (who is usually a total beach-bum), camp was a chance to relive one of her favorite childhood memories.

She went to sleepaway camp pretty much every year as a kid and thinks the grown-up version is just as good.

"I met this one girl [at adult summer camp], and we just started walking around to all the different bunks, because that's what you did as a kid," she said. "But all the bunks were empty. Everyone was out doing stuff. That was awesome to see."

Paige, Slip 'N Slide champ. Photo used with permission.

8. Other campers, like 37-year-old Jennifer, are making up for lost time.

Jennifer and her new friends at Camp No Counselors. She's the one holding the flag! Photo used with permission.

"I had never been to summer camp as a kid. I had never even heard of capture the flag before. Now I love capture the flag, and I'm actually good at it!" she said, adding that she likes adult summer camp because it's hard to make friends as an adult.

At adult summer camp, however, she says, "That's kind of the point of going."

She's been twice now and is ready to go back next summer.

9. Some camps have booze on hand to help folks relax, but there are plenty of options out there for all different kinds of campers.

Photo via Soul Camp, used with permission.

10. Most camps have dance-offs, lip-sync battles, talent shows, and other camper-led performances (if you're bold enough to join in).

Photo via Soul Camp, used with permission.

11. But one of the biggest draws is that these camps are a rare chance to really connect with total strangers.


Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

12. Seriously — with total strangers! Holding hands! You won't find connections like these at an all-inclusive resort.

Photo via Soul Camp, used with permission.

13. Who you are and what you do for a living don't matter at adult summer camp. The fact that hardly anyone knows each other is kind of the point, according to camper Shelby Walsh.

Most of the year, Walsh is the very-important vice president of an online trend community. But for a few days, in the summer, at least, she was just Shelby.

"You're not allowed to talk about what you do," Walsh told Upworthy. She says there were a lot of young professionals there, but tubing, archery, and arts and crafts took priority over networking.

And perhaps most importantly? "I would definitely do it again."

Shelby (middle), on '70s theme party night. Photo used with permission.

14. At some camps, attendees are asked to take nicknames.

"It's part of letting your real life go," McCoy says, though he was skeptical of the request at first.

"Some people felt more comfortable that way. It wasn't about status or class or where you came from after that. Some people, you never even knew their real name."

Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

15. Who wouldn't want to take a break from work to do this?


Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

(I don't know what it is, but it looks fun).

16. Think about it — when was the last time you did arts and crafts (without your kids totally taking over)?

Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

17. Of course, it wouldn't be summer camp without magnificent campfires.

Photo via Soul Camp, used with permission.

18. Like all things, though, camp has to end eventually. Going back to the real world is no fun.

"I wasn't in a hurry to get back. I wasn't eager to pick up my phone again," McCoy said. "But I was a lot more relaxed about my life when I left than when I got there."

Photo via Camp Grounded, used with permission.

19. The best part? Grown-up summer camp is a pretty affordable way to unwind.

Most camps run a couple hundred bucks for three days of lodging, food, and drinks; though your travel to and from the camp isn't covered.

And not only that, but the costs are totally fixed. Tichauer says a lot of the folks who sign up for Camp No Counselors do so because "it’s a simple turnkey weekend. You pay your money, you show up, and we have everything planned. Lodging, meals, activities, the potential for future friends. Everything."

Photo via Camp Grounded used with permission.

So there you have it. Adult summer camp is great! But it's certainly not the only way to disconnect with adult responsibilities and feel like a kid again.

You don't have to zoom down a Slip 'N Slide or wipe out on a wakeboard if that's not your thing. Camp is about making new friends, unplugging from technology, and trying new things.

With a little effort, we could all make a little more room for those things in our busy lives.

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