A Kid Again is an awesome organization that sponsors fun and free adventures for kids with life-threatening conditions and their families. In our podcast episode "The Importance of Playtime Featuring A Kid Again" we interviewed Kathy Derr, the Director of Family Engagement at A Kid Again and she shared her inspiring story about how her family was personally impacted by a life-threatening illness and how much it meant to her children to be able to prioritize spending time together and just being a regular family.

The Mission of A Kid Again 

In their words, A Kid Again exists to "foster hope, happiness, and healing for children with life-threatening conditions and their families!" A Kid Again services children (with life-threatening illnesses) and their families by facilitating play opportunities for the family that recapture moments of pure joy, and simply enjoy  "play" the moments of childhood. The opportunities that A Kid Again provide to its members include:

• In-person adventures
• Virtual adventures in-a-box
• Gaming teams in ESports
• Family meet and greet

A Kid Again serves children through the the age of 20. Once you enroll, A Kid Again provides families with year-round, cost-free adventures!  In their words, "our Adventures will take your family to places like the zoo, sporting events, and amusement parks. During these unprecedented times, we are also providing non-traditional Adventures by sending activity boxes to your home. You won’t have to pay for anything, and all the details of the day are planned for you… so you can enjoy just being together as a family and take your mind off the next doctor’s appointment, hospital stay, or procedure."

A Kid Again: PMC Parent Perspective

One of our own PMC All Stars got to experience the benefits of this awesome program first hand when they sponsored a trip to Kings Dominion for local families in June. Maddox and his family have been through a difficult year filled with a lot of doctor and therapy appointments, hospitalizations, and insurance battles. He was recently hospitalized for a week right before their A Kid Again adventure and his amazing supermom, Bethany, said the trip was just such a blessing.

"It gave us something fun to look forward to during our difficult week with little to no sleep. Everyone who attended was so helpful and understanding. Everywhere we went someone was asking 'Do you need anything?' It was also just nice to have an opportunity to connect with other families who are going through similar things. It meant so much to us for Maddox to have the opportunity to just be a kid and run around and play like everyone else."

 Part of A Kid Again's awesome mission is that these adventures are totally free for families who attend. They really understand how difficult things can be for these families and when you are spending all your money on medical care, it can be hard to find room in the budget for fun and adventures. Bethany was so grateful for this as well. Being a single mom who is only able to work part-time due to all of Maddox's medical appointments, it's hard to justify spending money on things like this. Bethany said "All we had to pay for was the gas to get down there and anything extra we wanted to buy. A Kid Again provided everything else which was so awesome!"

Thank you A Kid Again for working so hard to support the kids and families we love! We are so grateful to have a resource like this that we can share with everyone. It is so important to make time to enjoy and celebrate the time you have with the people you love and that can be hard to do in the busyness of life. Thank you for reminding us how important it is to take time to be A Kid Again.

Helpful Links

• For more information on A Kid Again, please visit their website at: A Kid Again - Serving Children with a Life-Threatening Condition
• A Kid Again is looking to serve as many families as possible. The more people who sign up, the more adventures they can sponsor! If you are interested in making time to be A Kid Again, please visit: Enroll with A Kid Again | Cost-Free Events for Kids | A Kid Again
• Listen to the Spark a Movement podcast episode featuring Kathy Derr, of A Kid Again.

*Photos and story shared with permission

*Reference from A Kid Again from https://akidagain.org/