Medical director Greg Fox
and executive director Ali Fox
consider the camp a part
of their family.
catching blood sugar fluctuations before
they become an issue.” Ramsey adds,
“Steve hasn’t slept through the night
since Liam was diagnosed.”
So it reassures parents that Greg Fox is
a doctor and many of the staff work in
health care or are certified diabetes
educators. With 60 staff for 90 campers,
there are plenty of adults ensuring each
child is eating well and checking their
blood sugar, getting the right dosage of
insulin, and sleeping safely through the
night. Counselors keep overnight vigils
in shifts in each cabin, and Fox and other
professionals make rounds into the
wee hours.
Ali Fox, meanwhile, posts photos of
happy, healthy campers on their
Facebook page and fields calls from
worried parents—but usually only
first-timers. “It’s life-changing for
14 HEALTH DISCOVERIES l WINTER 2020
parents,” she says of Camp Surefire.
“Even just a date night for dinner, it’s
hard. … There’s no day off. To at least have
a few days where they know that their
kids are safe and loved and in a good place
is really huge. As a mom, that’s one of the
things that I feel most passionate about.”
“It’s very common for folks to drop
their kids off at Camp Surefire and go
directly to an airport,” Greg Fox adds with
a laugh. “Not on year one, but after that.”
Last summer after taking Liam to West
Greenwich, Ramsey and Scott headed for
the Shawangunk Mountains in New York
to go climbing. “It’s a great camp,”
Ramsey says. “When he goes away to
camp, we go away by ourselves.”
FAMILY TIES
VOLU N TEER S A R E , PA R DON THE PU N,
the lifeblood of Camp Surefire. “We
couldn’t do what we do without them,”
Ali Fox says. “We’re able to keep the costs
low because everyone here is volunteer-
ing.” Nearly every staff member, from the
Foxes to the health care workers to the
counselors, is unpaid, and using precious
vacation time to return each year to this
place so dear to their hearts.
Nicholas Leso of North Kingstown,
whose brother has type 1, became a
counselor nine years ago, when he was a
URI pharmacy student. “I thought I had a
lot to share with the kids, but I learned
shortly after I got here it was the other way
around,” he says. Now a pharmacist at
Walgreens, he volunteers as camp
codirector with his wife, Jocelyn, a nurse
at The Miriam Hospital. The couple met at
Camp Surefire. “This is truly a family,”
Leso says. “We’re a very tight-knit group.”
Over the years Greg Fox has watched
over and cared for hundreds of campers,
taught them to manage their condition,
and seen them grow more confident in
themselves and their abilities as they
returned, year after year. “This is my
baby,” he says. “It is an extended family.”
The Foxes stay in touch with former
campers, attend their graduations and
weddings. Ali Fox broadcasts their
accomplishments on social media. “As the
camp mom, I brag about them all the
time,” she says. Since the Lesos had a baby
last year, she jokes: “I guess I am moving
toward camp grandmother status.”
They even developed the leader-in-
training (LIT) program so the older kids
could stay on. “They didn’t want to let us
go,” says Troy Ribeiro of Malden, MA, who
started coming to Camp Surefire 15 years
ago and now codirects the LIT program.
Nor did campers and staff want to see
each other only once a year. The camp
began to organize other events: a reunion
with families in the fall, a winter camp
weekend for teens, an open house in the
spring. Even fundraisers draw a crowd.
“Whatever’s happening here, we’re here
for,” Leso says.
Fundraising is crucial to Camp
Surefire’s mission of giving every child
the opportunity to experience sleepaway
camp, learn to manage their type 1
diabetes, and gain independence. “We