We're excited to launch a permanent collection of stories for our community to share.
For 25 years, Kesem has supported children facing a parent’s cancer through free, year-round programs and a lifelong community, led by dedicated college student volunteers. To mark the 25th anniversary, we’re catching up with former campers and student leaders to reflect on how their Kesem experiences continue to shape their lives.
Haley “Comet” Gumenick is a Senior Program Coordinator on Kesem’s National staff, but she first got involved with Kesem when she was in high school. “My mom found out about it through the cancer center where she was getting treatment and–lovingly–forced us to go.”
That encouragement from her mom gave Haley a life-changing, and life-long, community. Over the last 15 years she has served in almost every capacity you can with Kesem, but one role stood out. “It was the student leader role that really changed things. Being a camper was important to me, but being a student leader was where I fell in love with the organization.”
Like so many kids facing a parent’s cancer, Haley grew up fast. “I used to joke in high school that I ‘didn’t have feelings’ and a lot of that was just because it was simply too much to deal with.” Haley’s experiences as a camper and a student leader showed her how to share her feelings and how to deal with complicated or tough situations and emotions. “Kesem was the first place I ever felt truly safe to express myself and helped mold me into the person I am today. Kesem was THE thing for me in college and I don’t think I would be who I am without it.”
Today, in her role as Senior Program Coordinator, Haley supports student leaders at 9 chapters - students who are now in the role that changed her life so deeply. She uses her own experiences to help them. “[In college] I took over a chapter that was struggling and in a year we made it one of the most functional chapters in our region, and in the country, just because we were given the freedom to fail and to have a silly, goofy time.”
Finding creative ways to adapt and grow each individual chapter Haley works with, and helping each student leader find their place in Kesem and in the world is how she returns the gifts and experience Kesem originally gave her. Learning how to have hard conversations with her team, how to rise to the expectations set for them, and how to celebrate wins, no matter how small, is something Haley stresses with her students each week. “I am in constant awe of how hard college students are willing to work, and how many times we get the opportunity to try something new to make the best programming possible for Kesem families.”
Haley credits Kesem with teaching her everything she knows about leadership. “So much of how I live my life and the skills I use day to day are things that I learned at Kesem or that Kesem helped me to develop.”
But it’s also about that life-long community, where Haley finally felt like she could be herself. “I don’t think I would have the ability to have the relationships I have now if I hadn’t felt that amount of unconditional love I received at Camp Kesem.” At Haley’s wedding last year, 14 Kesem alumni were in attendance, carrying the invisible thread of Kesem into another new phase of life.
We're excited to launch a permanent collection of stories for our community to share.
