A Story of Resilience, Community, and Hope
The Rise Family Cancer Camp is inspired by personal experiences and a mission to support families facing cancer.
Our Mission
Our mission at the Rise Family Camp is to support young families with a parent facing cancer by providing a space for connection and support. We understand firsthand how challenging this time can be, and how meaningful it is for families to connect with others navigating a similar journey.
Each family member experiences this time differently. Patients, spouses, and children all carry their own challenges and emotions. Rise Family Camp brings families together in a supportive environment where they can share experiences, build relationships, and feel less alone in this journey.
Through on-site counselors, engaging activities, and opportunities for connection, we aim to create a space where families can find encouragement, community, and moments of joy together.
Our Story
The Rise Family Camp was founded by Hudson Harris, inspired by his family’s personal journey through life-threatening cancer and the profound impact it had on their lives.
When Hudson was just four years old, his mother, Erica was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). After initial treatments failed and salvage chemotherapy did not work, she was given a devastating two month terminal prognosis. She was denied all further medical care, aside from palliative care by two internationally recognized leukemia institutes, one in Canada and one in the US.
What followed was an extraordinary journey marked by Erica’s family’s resilience, faith, hope, and the support of a global community of medical professionals, blood and organ donors, family and friends and worldwide forces of love and support.
Against all odds, Erica achieved a spontaneous remission that allowed her to receive a life-saving bone marrow transplant from a donor in Germany. While the transplant saved her life, the years that followed brought further challenges. She later developed severe lung complications related to transplant rejection and eventually required a double lung transplant.
Because of the extraordinary generosity of organ donors, blood donors and the transplant community, Erica not only survived but she regained her strength and continues to thrive today.
Growing up alongside this journey, Hudson witnessed firsthand the profound toll that serious illness can take on an entire family. Beyond the medical treatments and hospital stays, there are the quieter struggles, the uncertainty, the fear, and the emotional weight that children and parents carry together.
Those experiences stayed with him.
The Rise Family Camp was born from Erica and Hudson’s desire to pay forward the compassion, generosity, and hope that carried their family through their most difficult years.
The camp offers young families facing a parent’s cancer diagnosis the opportunity to step away from the stress of illness and spend meaningful time together in nature.
Through outdoor adventures, shared meals, laughter around the campfire, and connection with other families who understand the journey, the Rise Family Camp creates space for joy, resilience, community and memory-making for all.
Held at Camp Latona on Gambier Island in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, the camp provides free day and weekend experiences designed to help families reconnect and create lasting memories together.
At its heart, the Rise Family Camp is built on a simple belief: Even during life’s hardest chapters, moments of connection, laughter, and togetherness can make an extraordinary difference.
A Note From Hudson
I grew up watching my family navigate the fear and uncertainty of serious illness. As a child, it was hard to understand what was happening, but I remember how much the support of others meant to our family.
The Rise Family Camp is my way of giving that support forward. My hope is that families facing cancer can come together, spend time in nature, and create moments of joy and connection during a time that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
If this camp can give even one family the chance to laugh together, breathe a little easier for the day, and feel less alone, then it will have meant everything.
We can’t wait to meet you and your family at Camp in June!
With hope,
Hudon Harris
With Gratitude
The Rise Family Camp exists in the spirit of gratitude for the countless people whose generosity saves and sustains lives every day, including organ, blood, and bone marrow donors, healthcare professionals, and the many quiet heroes who support families facing serious illness.
Their compassion made Hudson and Erica’s family’s story possible, and it continues to inspire Rise Family Camp’s mission today.
Interested in becoming a donor? Learn more at the website below