‘Our Favorite Place On Earth’: Camp ANCHOR Raises $128K For Rec Programming In July Fundraiser

LIDO BEACH, NY — Camp ANCHOR volunteer coordinator Mindy Reyer-Eisel has been working at the camp for over 40 years. She started out as a volunteer, and has been able to stay with the camp long enough to see her kids and her friends' kids volunteer when their own time comes.

This week, Camp ANCHOR raised $128,709.25 during its week-long fundraiser this month, bringing a cash infusion to the year-round program that gives kids and adults with special needs access to recreation and activities. It's a jump from the camp's 2024 fundraiser, which generated $114,000 from over 4,000 supporters with the help of over 300 volunteers, and for Reyer-Eisel the total can be described in one word: Amazing.

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"For us, it has been amazing. We are always motivated to raise money for our favorite place on Earth — that's what we call Camp ANCHOR — and this year, we were trying to blow it out of the water, and I think we did pretty well," Reyer-Eisel said. "We are overjoyed with the way it turned out, and we're going to continue on."

"For us to raise that amount of money, it usually is an immense amount of manpower and work and prep work, where this kind of was a little bit for the board and us, this was great," ANCHOR Program Fund office manager Marianne Pizza said. "We're so appreciative of the volunteer coordinators and the volunteers…they do more for us than anybody."

Pizza and Reyer-Eisel are old friends, both starting out as volunteers at Camp ANCHOR and rising to become full-time staff. For Pizza, who's also a parent of a Camp ANCHOR camper, the fact that people opened their hearts and wallets to the extent that they did had extra meaning.

"We are so grateful for the town, because this is a municipal program that is run by the town and they pay for the staff salary and they gave us this amazing campus, but there's so many extras that make this place so special," Pizza said. "There's over 200 people, 200 adults with disabilities in that program. Plus, we have at least half that in staff and volunteers that go on those trips with them…So these donations help really enhance these programs. And we try so hard not to go backwards because, what we've offered in the past, we want to always make it better."

Helping Pizza and Reyer-Eisel through the fundraising process this year was Double Good, a digital fundraising platform that removes some of the operational headaches from local organizations like Camp ANCHOR.

In a conversation with Patch Tuesday, Double Good Head of Partnerships Alison Dyer said the opportunity to work with Camp ANCHOR was a special one.

"We love Camp ANCHOR. They have become family to us. What they set out to do, creating these wonderful experiences for people with special needs, is really, it's something that's close to Double Good's heart, and close to my heart, personally," Dyer said. "It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, we want you, we believe that you have the opportunity to experience joy. Literally, the first time I went to Camp ANCHOR, I got goosebumps talking about it, it's pure joy."

As for what the fundraiser will make possible at Camp ANCHOR, Pizza and Reyer-Eisel emphasized that the camp — despite its name — isn't a summer-only affair. Instead, Camp ANCHOR has programming year-round that will be paid for in part by these funds.

"We have a lot of different ideas, but for the fall, winter and spring programs that we run, we need a lot of extra money for the trips that we go on," Reyer-Eisel said. "We have a drama program, we go on Broadway show trips, we do different programs every day, like bowling, fitness, arts and crafts, cooking, dances. We have Friday Night Lights, which is a teen club, so the money will go to hiring DJs, magicians, and all different enhancements to all our programs, not just the summer. So it really is going to be spread really far and wide."

That programming, and the community that pops up around it, is a major reason Reyer-Eisel said she has stuck around Camp ANCHOR.

"I started as a volunteer. So, it's like we don't leave," Reyer-Eisel said. "And the closest friends that we make are our ANCHOR friends and our ANCHOR family. It really is — It's hard to describe. It's hard to describe, and I'm getting teary, and I don't know why."

In recent years, Pizza said the staff at Camp ANCHOR have been able to pass that joy onto the next generation, showing them why this place is so special.

"One day, Mindy was giving the volunteer orientation, and her and her partner were discussing how they became friends at 14 years old, and now they're in their 40s, and they're best friends," Pizza said. "They had such excitement, and I'm looking at these kids' faces like, 'They must think we're crazy, that we're still working here, and that we love it so much,' but now [the kids] get it, you know? They get it."

"It's like we're a cult, but in a good way," Reyer-Eisel joked. "My daughter happens to be staffed with Marianne's son this year, coincidentally…I get home, and I hear about her son all the time. It's just amazing."

For Pizza, this family business that has brought countless kids through the volunteer ranks and serves over 1,000 participants is part of the reason Hempstead has remained her home in the first place. Leaving Hempstead, she said, would mean leaving Camp ANCHOR.

"I say it all the time, I would never move out of the town of Hempstead," Pizza said. "I don't care if somebody gave me a house for a million dollars for free, I'm not leaving, because I would never leave this program."