My first semester of college, I struggled. I worked quite a bit and into the late hours of the night (1-2 am sometimes) with 8 a.m. classes the next morning, couldn't seem to get myself involved in anything, and rarely got out of bed. I felt that I wasn't in the right place. I started looking at other colleges and even applied to a couple of them, hoping to find my "fit." However, in October of 2016, I found out why God sent me to go to school at Iowa. My aunt was abruptly diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.

Our family is close, maybe a little too close (but I absolutely love it). This shook our family and we did everything we could to make everyone's lives as normal as possible. I babysat my 4-year-old cousin a couple times a week, took over for my grandparents when they got tired and took my cousins to and from places when needed. I feel very fortunate that I went to college only 20 minutes away from where they live and feel very humbled to have been able to help.

3 weeks after the diagnosis, I got an email from a student organization that I signed up to be in, but never found myself going to. The email told us about a brand new student organization at Iowa called Camp Kesem. I had never heard of it before. The email goes on to tell about how Camp Kesem is a national organization who provides a free, week-long camp for children ages 6-16 who have been affected by a parent's cancer. They were looking for people to be on their Executive Board. I immediately knew the second reason why God sent me to Iowa. Without a second thought, I filled out the Google interest form and was interviewed a couple weeks later. After my interview, I was even more excited about this organization. I was told I would hear back within 2-3 days, and when I didn't, I was really sad. That is, until I received an email 2 weeks later offering me the position of Outreach Coordinator! I was ecstatic. I was so excited that I could do this for my family. My family means everything to me and I felt good that I could do this for them.

5 months later, after countless training sessions, meetings with the team and counselors, phone calls to social workers, and pure enthusiasm coming from our whole Kesem family at Iowa, I couldn't be more excited to see what our very first year of camp will bring.

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If you or anyone you know would be interested in taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity, please contact me at iowa.outreach@campkesem.org. Our camp is June 4-10 at Camp Little Cloud in Epworth, Iowa and transportation from Iowa City will be provided if needed! We are also a non-profit, completely donation-funded. If you are interested in donating, here is the giving link: https://donate.kesem.org/fundraise?fcid=830854