Kidz2Leaders was founded by Dr. Diane Parrish in 1999, after she learned about the impact of parental incarceration on children while serving in prison ministry.
In 2000, Diane created Camp Hope, a week-long summer camp for children impacted by parental incarceration.
In 2004, we introduced the C2C (camper-to-counselor) program for older campers, creating leadership development opportunities.
In 2009, we launched the Interns4Tomorrow program to provide our oldest campers with professional development training and local internships.
In 2010, our first class of campers graduated from our programs, leading to the creation of our alumni community. To this day, 99% of our graduates are living free from incarceration.
By 2018, our program had grown so large that we expanded to second session of Camp Hope, creating Cornerstone for younger campers, and Leadership Camp for the teens in our programs.
In 2023, we launched a new Senior Teen Leadership track AND experienced exponential growth: quadrupling the number of Camp Hope applicants, doubling the number of first-time campers, enrolling a record-breaking number of interns, and welcoming three times as many families to retreats as ever before!
To date, the program has served over 1,500 campers, siblings, parents, guardians, and relatives.
