LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY RETREAT INC

We greatly respect and honor the medical staff at the incredible children's hospitals across the country. While nurses, doctors, surgeons, specialists, and counselors treat the cancer and the body, Lighthouse exists to treat the family. Each member of the family and the family as a unit deserve to be treated while their child's or sibling's cancer is treated. LFR was founded by a tenured pediatric oncology nurse who had decades of hospital bedside experience and observed what pediatric cancer really does to families. In all of her wisdom and love, she knew more needed to be done. The trauma and fear instilled in the very moment you hear that your child or sibling has cancer takes root and can only be defeated by hope beyond a cure. Our retreats focus on rest, joy, restoration, and hope for families in the greatest need. Our various retreats, while based in these four values, are all built on one core principle: You are not alone. While thousands of families are on similar pediatric cancer journeys, it is lonely. By bringing 10 -14 families together on each retreat, we them an opportunity to have a community that understands, supports, uplifts, and encourages one another. We now have two former families represented on our staff, several former families represented on our Board of Directors, and dozens of families who regularly return as volunteers to serve others because of the impact our program made on them. We have siblings who return to serve on our summer staff internship program, and parents lead their families to join local churches to continue growing closer to God at home after retreat. We have even had parents literally tear up their divorce papers on retreat!

Our goal, in summation, is to bring families living through childhood cancer together with other families to encounter rest, joy, restoration, and hope that last well after they spend time with us on retreat.

Seaside Retreats which offer:
-Community through daily group meetings with families experiencing similar circumstances
-Fun regular activities designed to restore joy in a carefree environment
-A spiritually uplifting support structure that extends beyond the week of the retreat
-Special and catered events throughout the week for children, parents, and the entire family

Weekend Retreats which offer:
-A unique retreat-like experience for families in their own community, without the need for travel or time off of work
-Connections with the local community who are looking for ways to meet families with needs and work together to find out how to best meet those needs over the long haul of treatment and issues that tend to occur alongside of the cancer journey

Community of Care which offers:
-Long-term, practical care for families with a child with cancer by their own committed community
-Help with home repairs, yard work, child care, meal trains
-Emotional support like regular phone calls and handwritten notes

Restorative Resources:
-Podcast
-Youtube Channel
-Printed Materials

Lighthouse Family Retreat has 25 years of strengthening families living through childhood cancer. From our founding by a tenured, experienced pediatric oncology nurse to our 25 years of honing and crafting the best possible retreat experience, we continue to grow in both capability and capacity. Because of the unforgettable life-changing experience families have had, we now have second and third generations choosing to return to serve other families on a journey similar to their own. On staff and our board alone, we have multiple mothers and fathers who were introduced to Lighthouse by being served because one of their children was diagnosed with cancer. We maintain special, crucial, and deep relationships with children's hospitals across the country. We not only take time and resources to intentionally thank medical staff for caring for the same families we do, but we also have at least one currently licensed medical professional on each of our retreat experiences. We consider them partners and consultants as we continue to cater our retreat experiences, even after all this time. We have a growth strategy to continue diversifying and enhancing our staff and board to move toward our goal of accepting every family that applies for a retreat, eliminating our waitlists. We are both well-known and respected by our peers in other non-profits serving a similar target population, which means the world to us.

On August 8, 2000, Lighthouse held its inaugural retreat on Tybee Island, GA for six children with cancer, their families, and volunteers. Lighthouse has steadily grown since, hosting 21 week-long retreats this year in addition to new programs. From 2000 - 2018, we concentrated on growing our staff and growing our flagship program, Week-Long, Seaside Retreats.

In the fall of 2019, we piloted our Sunrise Retreat for families who have lost their child to cancer. This unique retreat is designed to give space to celebrate the child while encouraging the family to grow stronger together in the grieving process. 2020 did not allow us to host any retreats due to our population being among the most susceptible to immune-related complications. However, we did take the chance to strengthen more families and engage more volunteers than any year before through our Box Project. We customized and created four boxes per family that we would have served on retreat and the families we served in 2019. These boxes were themed around or retreat truths of rest, joy, restoration as a family, and hope for them to have a mini-retreat safely at home.

In 2021, Lighthouse hosted 21 week-long retreats, piloted a weekend retreat, held our second one-day retreat, launched our Community of Care program, recorded 25 new podcast episodes, created our own kids coloring and activity book, wrote 2 new devotions, and is still working on a new 2021 Advent calendar with family projects.
We were exceedingly proud to launch our Community of Care designed to harness the support of a family's immediate community to see them through long, multi-year treatments and support them in real, tangible ways. This includes meals, transporting siblings, yard work, housework, emotional support, and spiritual support. With this grant, we would be able to travel to local communities across the country to train, equip, and launch multiple Communities of Care to help share the burdens of childhood cancer.

In 2022 and 2023, we continued piloting new locations for our Weekend Retreats and One-Day Retreats. We also realized the need for more bereavement retreats, which is a dream we got to see come to fruition in 2024. 2023 also saw Lighthouse grow to a staff of 25, our largest ever. Already in 2024, the Community of Care is thriving and we piloted a Weekend Sunrise Retreat for bereaved families. We have a full year of Week-Long, Seaside Retreats starting on April 1st and ending the last week of September. We have our 6th annual Week-Long Sunrise Retreat that last week of September as well.