This story was written by our 2025 Marketing Assistant, Matthew Barker.
Meet Volunteer Lauren! During this session, we had four super-duper fantastic volunteers from our partners, Abercrombie & Fitch, including Lauren! She is an associate merchant on the Abercrombie adult brand, and was connected with Roundup River Ranch through their partnership with SeriousFun. This was her first year volunteering at camp. Two things inspired her to volunteer.
“One, obviously, the partnership my company has with SeriousFun and hearing all of the associates that had such a life changing experience. But two, my sister Ashley, she has severe hearing loss and we found out about it probably when she was at the end of elementary school. And it’s been something that, you know, we’ve all lived through as a family. And I think just growing up with someone who faced a silent disability, it was really an eye-opening experience.”
Lauren described her volunteer experience at Roundup River Ranch this week as “life-changing.”
“It truly was such a magical, magical experience being here from the full-time staff to the seasonal staff to all the campers. Everyone comes with such excitement and joy, and I think it is such a good opportunity just to step away from the things that seem super significant in life and just spend time here. You really get re-grounded in it really is just the little things that matter, and some of the things that feel really big really aren’t as big as you think. So it was a phenomenal experience.”
One of her favorite moments was seeing one of the campers in her cabin come out of his shell throughout the week. He was very reserved, very shy – didn’t really want to participate in some of the activities. And by the end – our grand finale, CROM [camp prom], he was dancing and having a blast. I really saw him come into his true self and feel so confident and comfortable being himself around others. That was just a special moment for me. I literally started tearing up because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this camp is really so magical.’ And it really is just the little things.”
