April 28–30 was our third ACA Hill Days event — the first since the Congressional Camp Caucus became real. Over a hundred camps were represented.

By 9:00 in the morning, camp was all over Capitol Hill.

More than 100 camp professionals spread out across House and Senate offices in groups organized by state and region. Every group had a schedule, a folder, and the same three asks.

These are your peers and your colleagues. Camp people advocating for camp at the highest levels of government. They gave their time and energy to advance this mission.

The WhatsApp group started firing from the first meeting. We were seeing pictures outside office doors with the member's name plaque, notes from every conversation, and a live feed of what was happening in real time. Some folks had photos with their members of Congress smiling alongside them; others, with staffers.

By 4:30 that afternoon, we'd logged somewhere north of 120 meetings.

Camp Was All Over It

Camp directors visited our Camp Caucus leaders. They visited the folks they knew from back home and those they had only read about or seen on the news. State after state, doors open and appointments were scheduled because members of Congress listen to their constituents differently.

Every group went in with the same three requests:

1. Join the Congressional Camp Caucus.
2. Help address the J-1 appointment backlog (5,000 camp counselors currently waiting for embassy and consulate interviews across five countries).
3. Push the Department of Justice to finally implement the Child Protection Improvements Act, signed into law in 2017 and still sitting unimplemented through three administrations. It was supposed to give all camps access to timely and affordable criminal background checks through the FBI. That still hasn’t happened.

Every packet included a state-specific economic impact sheet. For a state like North Carolina, it’s $1.7 billion and 33,000 employees.

At the national level, we are talking $70 billion, 1 million employees, and 26 million kids going to camp each summer.

The numbers establish the scale and scope of camps across America.

Both chambers were in session with floor votes running all day. The House had been scheduled for recess this week until the calendar changed two months ago.

Sometimes the chaos of Congress works in your favor. It did that day.

The Campfire

That evening, camp professionals, congressional staffers, and members of Congress gathered at the Campfire on the Hill.

We'd ordered the most food the venue would allow. We ran out.

The room holds somewhere between 200 and 250 people. Committee staff from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Education and Workforce Committee showed up on their own, having heard about our gathering. Whole offices of congressional staff came down together to see what was happening.

In each of the two prior ACA Hill Days, not a single member of Congress attended the Campfire on the Hill. Zero.

This year, two of our four caucus chairs spoke, a third shared a wonderful video greeting, and another member asked to step up to the stage because his camp experience meant so much to him, he just had to share.

Earlier in the day, one of our congressional leaders left the Appropriations Committee hearing to meet with us. That evening, he gave remarks, stayed to speak with as many people as possible, and was still there 40 minutes later — which, in this world, is a very long time.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen made the trip from the Senate side, with active floor votes happening. This was a 30-minute round-trip (again, a long time) because she believes in camp.

Congressman Randy Fine dropped in unplanned and asked if he could speak. He told the room he's the only currently serving Boy Scout troop leader in Congress.

These were all leaders stepping up to show support for the camp community.

A True Movement

There was something palpably different about this Hill Day. What changed in those meetings, and what the caucus made possible that couldn't have happened before, is next week's letter.

Andy Schlensky has been part of building this work for years. He found me during the evening. He came back. We hugged.

"This is unbelievable," he said. "It went from a dream to this reality."

This level of government advocacy was raised as an idea 25 years ago. Andy and I have been talking seriously about it for almost a decade. On April 29, 2026, over a hundred camp professionals took over Capitol Hill for a day.

That was the culmination of one thing. And the beginning of something much larger.

Join the movement. Get updates on the Camp Caucus and learn how you can support camp advocacy in DC.

Scott Brody is ACA’s Government Affairs co-chair and leads the association’s advocacy efforts in Washington, DC. He served as ACA National Board Chair during the COVID-19 crisis, helping guide camps nationwide through safe reopening while securing unprecedented federal support. A camp director for more than 30 years, Scott is Director Emeritus of Camps Kenwood & Evergreen and owner of Everwood Day Camp and Camp Sewataro. He has dedicated his career to advancing the life-changing impact of camp and championing its value on a national stage.