Eleven-year-old Cedar Graham can’t wait to go to camp this summer so he can practice being kind.
While some kids might delight in a summer camp of swimming and sports, and others might relish technology or drama camp, all Cedar wants to do is help others. And he has found the opportunity to do that at Camp Kind. As he prepares for his fourth summer at Camp Kind, what is he looking forward to most?
“The volunteering opportunities are great, and I learn a lot from them,” he says. “But I am looking forward to all of it.”
Cedar’s mother Christine is equally delighted that Cedar will spend four weeks this summer at a camp that arranges volunteer work at nonprofits that help people, animals, and nature. “As a parent, it’s just a joy to see Cedar come home and hear about the places where he has volunteered,” she says. “In a lot of cases, these are organizations that I have never heard of, so I learn from him.”
When she signed Cedar and his older brother up for Camp Kind in Westminster the first time three years ago, Christine noticed in the paperwork that the camp appeared to be run by a Rabbi. The Graham family is not Jewish, but the camp met their children’s needs and interests, so she decided that religion was not a factor.
In fact, Camp Kind is the brainchild of the founders of Chabad of NW Metro Denver, Rabbi Benjy Brackman and his wife Leah. Ten years ago, Rabbi Brackman offered two one-week camp sessions of Camp Kind with about a dozen children in each session. This year, Camp Kind will run for eight weeks with 60 children in each session.
Even more remarkable than the growth over the past decade is the fact that the majority of the children at a camp run by an Orthodox rabbi are not Jewish. Rabbi Brackman still remembers the very first registration form he received for the first camp—back when it was just a vague idea with good intentions. To him, it affirmed that this new idea was something people wanted.
‘The work made him feel valuable and special’
This Chabad-run camp populated mostly by non-Jewish children started accidentally in 2014 when the phone rang, and Rabbi Brackman found himself talking to a mother who was looking for help. She was not Jewish, but she was hosting her young stepson for the summer, and he was required to serve 50 hours of community service after an altercation at school. The mother was calling every religious organization she could find to see if she could arrange for him to do volunteer work.
It occurred to Rabbi Brackman that he had a fence that needed painting. And that is how a young person in trouble found himself spending part of his summer painting an old wooden fence. When he was finished, he came over to Rabbi Brackman and, with a big smile, said, “I want to thank you so much.”
“At first, I thought, ‘Why is he thanking me?’” Rabbi Brackman says. “And then I realized that he felt that I had given him the chance to do something meaningful. The work made him feel valuable and special.”
That, Rabbi Brackman says, gave birth to the idea of the camp. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if children in the wider community could have a similarly fulfilling experience by doing work that helped others? Thus, Camp Kind was born.
‘A better version of themselves’
In its first year, Rabbi Brackman did everything at the camp—he was the counselor, the bus driver, the food shopper—whatever the camp needed. Now, the camp has a summer staff that executes a carefully choreographed program.
First and foremost, campers do meaningful acts of volunteering, a “mitzvah every single day,” working in North Metro and Boulder County nonprofits—everything from food pantries, animal shelters, and senior centers.
They also have in-camp kindness workshops where they might stuff bears for kids in a hospital, make sandwiches for people experiencing homelessness, or prepare adoption kits for animal shelters.
Finally, Campers learn about the theme of the day in Kindness and Character Clinics.
“These are lessons in developing positive character traits—for example, being kind to each other, to animals, showing humility and generosity,” Rabbi Brackman says. “They help children become a better version of themselves.”
There is no shortage of regular camp activities at Camp Kind including fun day trips, so the experience lives up to the name “camp.” Camp Kind accepts children from all faiths, so even though the majority of families who sign up are not Jewish, occasionally there are Jewish families.
“The meaning of tikkun olam is to repair the world,” Rabbi Brackman says. “With Camp Kind, we take the values of tikkun olam and share them with a wider non-Jewish community.”
In 2026, Rabbi Brackman hopes to expand Camp Kind throughout the metro area with an eye on taking the concept to a national level. But for now, he is looking forward to the upcoming season. In this environment of increased antisemitism, he believes it will be a beautiful thing to see so many non-Jewish families lining up at the Chabad House with a large menorah outside, bringing their children to summer day camp.