Maryland camp encourages kids with serious illness to ‘raise a little hell'

When Halle Middleton arrived for her first day at The Hole in the Wall Gang camp in Ashford, Connecticut, she said she was excited and a little frightened.

"It was my first time at sleepaway camp and my first time being away from my family for so long," Middleton told camp supporters at the March 21 dedication of the infirmary of a new camp opening in Queenstown, Maryland.

"These fears quickly vanished when I was greeted by silly dances at the main gate, and when my mom and I were greeted by smiling counselors," Middleton said. "I had stepped into another world. At camp, you are a kid and camper first, and someone with an illness second."

She was 7 at the time, and diagnosed with a rare, aggressive brain cancer. Remembering that moment 15 years ago, she said she forgot about her illness until a counselor tapped her shoulder to say she needed to take her medicine.

The Hole in the Wall Gang opened its second camp on April 23 in the former Aspen Institute Conference Center in Queen Anne's County. It will serve children with severe and rare illnesses meeting certain criteria - including some cancers, and blood and immunologic disorders - in Maryland and surrounding states, at no cost.

The organization chose Maryland as the site of its expansion after researching the need and facilities in the Mid-Atlantic region, and because it had hosted many campers from this region, said Hilary Axtmayer, chief program officer for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. The proximity to Maryland's major research hospitals, as well as Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and Nemours Children's Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware, was a key consideration.

Actor Paul Newman first founded the Ashford camp in 1988 so children facing serious medical issues can have "serious fun," forget about their medical treatments and maybe "raise a little hell." In its first year, The Hole in the Wall Gang camp served 288 children and family members. Today, about 40,000 people participate each year through family weekends, week-long sleep-away camps, and hospital and family outreach efforts.

The Aspen Institute think tank donated the 130-acre Wye Island property for the new camp. President Bill Clinton once hosted historic peace accords between Israel and Palestine at the conference center in 1998.

"This property will soon be filled with the sounds of children and families laughing, trying new things, making new friends, discovering that they are not alone and that their illness does not define them," Hole in the Wall Gang CEO Jimmy Canton said at the opening ceremony in April. "Every building, path and gathering space here will help create moments of hope, independence and pure joy. Woo!"

Canton told The Baltimore Sun that he started working at the organization in 1988 as a counselor and eventually dedicated his career to the camp's mission.

The weekend retreat center includes a craft room with a Lego wall, a maker space with 3D-Printing machines and a dressing room for the camp theater, where campers perform music and skits for each other and their families. The center also features a pool, pizza oven, vegetable garden and indoor and outdoor dining areas.

"After every meal, we dance, and we sing, and it's an incredibly joyful experience," Axtmayer said. "Dancing and singing are very important to us."

Once all renovations are complete, Axtmayer said, they will host week-long sleepaway events for children at new facilities built around the main Houghton House on the property.

Safety ‘scaffolding' built in

The camp also has a helicopter pad next to a state-of-the-art, urgent-care infirmary with skilled nursing and clinical care available around the clock. With a hemologist-oncologist serving as medical director and a full-time nursing director, they can handle urgent care, dialysis or lab work that campers need to remain independent.

"If there's an emergency at camp, and we have to get our kiddos to the hospital, we will do that by air," Axtmayer said. "We have this sort of scaffolding built up around them so they can feel safe enough to stretch, and that's the magic of this place."

A large volume of medical research into the needs of children with serious, rare or chronic illnesses backs up the camp's focus on independence, fun and making friends.

Peer relationships play a key role in how children with chronic illness view their diagnosis and treatments, according to a 2025 study in the Journal of Pediatric Nursing titled, "My friends make it feel like I'm the same."

Those benefits hold true for children regardless of gender, socioeconomic status or specific illness, researchers reported in the journal Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2005.

"So often, kids with severe illness do not have the same opportunities to be social that other kids their age have," Axtmayer said.

Runs on donated time and money

The Hole in the Wall Gang doesn't ask families for a penny for these experiences and does not solicit tax funding. Instead, they rely on celebrity and anonymous donors for all expenses.

According to the Better Business Bureau's Give.org profile, The Hole in the Wall Gang spends around 8.3% of its income on administrative costs. The organization suggests charities spend no more than 35% on administrative costs, but ideally less than 15%.

The charity got one negative mark on the profile for accumulating a stockpile of money. According to their 2023 financial statements, the charity had $108 million in assets, 4.6 times its $23 million annual expense budget. The standard, according to Give.org, is to reserve three times the organization's annual expenses or less.

In a written response, the charity said those funds serve as an endowment, and donations balance the annual budget with reserve withdrawals limited to 5%.

"This very intentional construct is directly responsive to the growing and urgent needs of children with serious illnesses and their families," the statement reads.

To limit expenses, volunteers fill many roles, from camp counselors all the way up to pharmacists and doctors.

"It's all completely free for our families because of a generous community of donors who support us and believe in what we do," Axtmayer said.

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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 1:21 AM.