Mary Kitchens said there are two kinds of healing when it comes to children and adults living with chronic illness and physical and mental challenges.
Mary Kitchens said there are two kinds of healing when it comes to children and adults living with chronic illness and physical and mental challenges.
The first one is physical, usually gained through medical and mental health care that treats both the body and mind.
The second kind of healing is emotional.
It’s emotional healing that Kitchens said she has witnessed firsthand with children at special needs summer camps.
“When the activities at a camp are done in a way where everybody can do it, whether it’s riding horses, swimming, or canoeing; a couple of days at a camp can restore a child’s self-esteem. They have hope and fun. And that’s a different kind of healing,” Kitchens, 79, said recently at Camp Kamassa in Crystal Springs.
Kitchens is the reason Camp Kamassa, the state’s first and only year-around handicap accessible camp, will celebrate a grand opening on April 4 and welcome groups of campers this summer.
“God gave me the mission to do this. He said, ‘I want you to do this.’ And once I heard his voice, I never doubted it,” Kitchens said.
Although the origins of the camp go back to 2007 when Kitchens founded the non-profit group, Mississippi’s Toughest Kids Foundation, the seeds of Camp Kamassa were sown in 1984.
When the activities at a camp are done in a way where everybody can do it, whether it’s riding horses, swimming, or canoeing; a couple of days at a camp can restore a child’s self-esteem. They have hope and fun. And that’s a different kind of healing.
In 1977, Mary Kitchens and her husband Jim — a former member of the Mississippi Supreme Court — found out their 3-year-old son Dan was diagnosed with cancer.
After years of hospital visits and radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Dan was able to attend a three-day summer camp for kids with cancer at Strong River Camp in Pinola. That was in 1984 when Dan was 10. There were 30 children at the camp session, and it changed Dan’s life as well as the lives of the entire Kitchens family.
“They loved it. Our kids went back every year and became counselors. We wanted other kids to have the same experience,” Kitchens said. Today, Dan Kitchens is cancer free and still involved in camp.
The camp session was put on by Camp Rainbow, an organization that created camps for pediatric cancer patients and survivors. Camp Rainbow would partner with different camps all around the state each year for their sessions.
“I just thought it would be so great if there was a permanent place for a special needs camp. I thought, I wish someone would build a permanent camp,” she said.
She talked to her family and prayed to God about it.
After reading Hebrews 12:13 in her Bible, the passage spoke to her.
“Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.”
‘Kamassa’ is a Choctaw word for toughness
Kitchens visited 14 different special needs camps around the country.
“I took photos and asked questions. I wanted to find out what worked and what didn’t. Everything here comes from that,” Kitchens said.
Kitchens also hired Tanya Mohawk to be the camp’s executive director.
“You look around camp today, and everything you see are a bunch of miracles,” Mohawk said during a tour of the campground.
Jim Kitchens came up with the name.
“He said that special needs children have been through so much. They have to be so tough. Kamassa is a Choctaw word. It was perfect,” Kitchens said.
The foundation purchased 426 acres in Crystal Springs and paid it off by 2017. Construction on the camp started in 2018.
Military groups from all four branches came out over the years to work on the camp, Mohawk said.
Civil engineers and enlisted troops were sent to Camp Kamassa as part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) program. The reservist training provides key services to American communities.
There’s nothing like Camp Kamassa in the state of Mississippi.
The cost of the camp is approximately $30 million.
When camp opens to the public this summer, Kamassa will have 14 cabins, a dining hall, a 14,000 square-foot medical clinic that can staff doctors and nurses, a recreation pavilion, a baseball and soccer field, a lake and lake house, a chapel, and an activity center where campers can participate in ceramics, woodworking, arts and crafts, music, and a dancehall.
There is also a wheelchair-accessible 3,000 square-foot pool for swimming.
The entire camp is wheelchair accessible.
Once Kamassa secures additional funding, they hope to feature other amenities including a rock-climbing wall in the activity center, a universal challenge course, an amphitheater, a general store, guided hunts, a farm, and an equestrian center.
Concern for Community
When Mohawk said the camp is filled with miracles wherever you look, she was referring to the work of volunteers and financial contributions of donors, organizations, and the state and federal government.
Southwest Electric, the Lorman-based electric cooperative, got involved with Camp Kamassa early.
Before any work could be completed at the site, they needed power.
Southwest Electric provided poles, lines, and 3-phase power at no cost.
Since that time, Southwest employees have provided countless volunteer hours getting the camp ready to open. Employees also donate money to the project through a voluntary monthly paycheck deduction.
All 25 of Mississippi’s distribution electric co-ops and Cooperative Energy, a generation and transmission cooperative, made a collective donation to Camp Kamassa in the early stages of the venture.
Electric cooperatives live by seven Cooperative Principles. No. 7 is Concern for Community — “Cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies supported by the membership.”
For Southwest Electric CEO and General Manager Kevin Bonds, getting involved was a no brainer.
“The project spoke to me. The mission really pulled at my heart,” Bonds said during a March volunteer workday at the camp.
During that workday, Southwest Electric employees built beds for the camp cabins.
“I’m getting excited because we are so close to seeing kids out here,” Bonds said.
Mohawk said Southwest Electric has become part of the Camp Kamassa family.
“We consider Southwest best friends,” Mohawk said.
“They (Southwest) went above and beyond for us and are an essential part of this camp community,” Kitchens said.
Summer 2025
Andrew Vincent, the camp director, said Kamassa has a brain and spinal injury group coming for a session in the middle of May.
For the summer, seven weeks are already booked for five different groups including a Camp Rainbow group and a session for sickle cell patients.
Vincent said he hopes to get into partnerships down the road with UMMC Children’s Hospital and the Mississippi Schools for the Deaf and Blind. He also hopes to develop programming for the autistic population.
“This place has the capacity for so many opportunities in the future. I can’t wait to see what will be happening out here in 25 to 30 years,” Vincent said.
