Few people know Camp Quality better than Ange, one of our awesome Camp Quality nurses. She started her CQ experience as a camper and loved it so much she eventually came back as a companion. Now, she helps take care of campers as a nurse – and having been a camper herself, she knows exactly how much that means to them!  

“I had aplastic anaemia when I was little and got to come along to camp,” shares Ange. “I loved it, and counted down the months every year until camp came around. My last companion that I had, I’m still really good friends with and we would never have met each other if not for camp. She’s like my big sister now.”  

Speaking of sisters, Camp Quality is definitely a family affair for Ange. When Ange’s cousin, who was also a camper and is intellectually disabled, wanted to come back for another camp, his parents weren’t keen – so his aunt (Ange’s mum) became his companion and came along for camp too.  

“Mum’s filled me in about how she knew camp was so important for me, but to see it in that light was completely mind-boggling.”  

After leaving school, Ange came back for the “completely different experience” of being a companion, even bringing her now-husband along too! But after graduating and becoming a paediatric oncology nurse, she found she could help children at camp even more as a camp nurse. 

“I did maybe 3 or 4 years as a companion, then 2 or 3 as a nurse before I had children,” shares Ange. “Last year they couldn’t find a nurse so they asked if I would come. I was so nervous, but within my first day of being at camp I remembered why I loved it so much. These kids are thrust into an adult world early on. To have a week that is purely fun is so awesome – a chance for them to be normal,” gushes Ange. “All these kids have battle scars, that they might hide at school – but at camp they carry them like trophies. It’s such a unique space.”