Anticipation. That’s the word that best summarizes how I felt as we picked up the girls from the train station on the first day of KKOOM’s 2026 Busan Wellness Camp.
I’ve had the privilege of being part of many KKOOM camps over the years, but something about this one felt different. For many of the students in our Girls’ Empowerment and Mentorship (GEM) Program, this camp would be a summer of firsts. First time in Busan. First time seeing the ocean. First time on a yacht. First time eating Mexican food. The list goes on and on.
Every summer since our GEM Program began, we bring a group of girls together for about a week that looks nothing like their everyday routine. This August, that meant four days in Busan built around a simple idea: give the girls a real break, full of new experiences, gentle challenges, and people fully present with them. It takes months of planning, sometimes up to a full year, to pull off. By the time arrival day comes, you can imagine the weight of anticipation we carry to make sure the students have the best experience we can offer.
The children’s homes we work with like to call these experiences “healing camps.” I’d like to think those words capture the overarching goal we’re trying to achieve.
Four Days, Four Themes
Our camp this year was organized around four themes that carried the girls throughout the week: Make Waves, Dive In, Go with the Flow, and Rise Together. Each day’s theme tied into the activities and reflection for that day.
Every morning, we kicked things off with breakfast, reflections, and a mini-lesson related to the day’s theme. On days like Make Waves, that meant embracing one’s inner creativity through tie-dye shirts, or making our own beaded pens, a trend that has been washing over all of Korea. To stay on brand, all the pens were also ocean themed and oh so cute!
Some days the themes were more abstract in concept, while other days were more literal. On Day Two’s theme, Dive In, we literally entered the water at Gwangalli Beach for our paddleboarding class. Picture a beach full of boards lined up in the sand, and nerves and excitement running through the group before anyone had even paddled out. The waves were high and the wind was strong that day, but we had already decorated mantra rocks and remembered to embrace the challenge as an adventure. Needless to say, we dived in and swam with greater confidence on the other side.
Go with the Flow, on our third day, meant a relaxing trip to one of Korea’s most beautiful seaside temples, Haedong Yonggungsa Temple. The pace of the day continued with a seaside restaurant and cafe for lunch, a rejuvenating yoga class, and, as evening fell, a yacht cruise along the coast, complete with fireworks! Easily one of the best days we all had. A chance to rest, breathe in fresh air, and embrace the waves.
On our departure day, Rise Together felt like a fitting theme. We celebrated the students’ individual and collective wins throughout the week, and came together to learn about shark anatomy through a fun team game. Blindfolded, one team member needed to lean into trusting their peers to walk them through putting the shark together, while the others learned how to communicate in unison. Rounding out this experience with hands-on, in-person learning, we finished our camp with a final visit to the Busan Sea Life Aquarium to see sharks in real life.
Thanks to a volunteer who helped us plan the camp, one of my favorite new additions this year was a chance to build a connection between volunteers and students. On day one, we drew a name at random for who would become our secret friend, or “Manito.” Then, throughout the week, we were tasked with looking out for them and figuring out what small gift they might like to take home from this experience. A beautiful close to a meaningful week of firsts.
The Unplanned Moments That Stuck
However, ask any of us what we’ll remember most from camp, and it’s rarely the big scheduled activities. It’s the in-between moments.
Take the beach walk that ran longer than expected, because everyone stopped to admire a huge gingerbread man decoration. Or, the ice cream on the beach that turned into an impromptu evening ocean dip.
Then there was the temple visit, where one girl who seemed unimpressed at first slowly warmed up. On her third try tossing a coin into a wishing pot on a bridge crowded with strangers, she got it in. She was so happy she nearly forgot to make her wish. Afterward, she told that story to anyone who would listen for the rest of the trip.
One of my favorite moments of reflection came from a tradition we host every camp: a one-on-one shopping trip between a volunteer and a student. It’s a rare chance to give a student an adult’s undivided attention, something that can be hard to come by in a house full of other students.
During this experience, one of our volunteers told me she’d gone into her shopping trip a little worried. She was unsure how to find common ground with a girl she hadn’t quite connected with yet. Twenty minutes into searching, they stumbled into a store selling merchandise from the girl’s favorite anime character. What followed was pure joy: running through the aisles together, comparing items, finally finding the thread that connected them.
Another volunteer had a similar breakthrough, spending an afternoon talking with a camper about her dream of becoming a hairstylist. She came away struck by how much the girl already knew, the training, the testing, the whole path. Passion and preparation well beyond her years.
Watching the Girls Grow
In our post-camp volunteer surveys, more than one of our returning volunteers this year said the same thing: something had shifted. In past camps, some of the girls held back at first, too shy or too worn out to fully join in. This time, even when an activity looked intimidating, they tried right away anyway.
Paddleboarding was the clearest example. Several girls told us straight up they were scared and were 100% sure it would be too hard. However, they pushed through, and by the end, some of them even named it as their favorite part of the whole week. Yoga was much the same, challenging at the moment, but many of the students wanted to keep practicing or try it again in the future.
One of our volunteers put it perfectly: watching personalities emerge in real time out on the water, who braved the open sea alone, who splashed the coaches, who stuck close to shore collecting shells. Moments like that, chosen freely instead of assigned, told us more about each girl than any icebreaker ever could.
In Their Own Words
After camp, we also got to hear from the girls themselves, and a few things came up again and again. Several mentioned specific moments that stuck with them: making snacks together, singing at karaoke, and the sunset yacht ride.
One student noted that when she first saw the paddleboards, she felt sure she’d fall in and hate the whole thing. She tried anyway. “Once I actually did it, the teachers helped me so much that it was easy and fun,” she wrote. “My arms hurt afterward, but I think that’s exactly why it stuck with me even more.”
More than one wrote that they’d arrived unsure whether they’d feel comfortable during the camp, but because of the teachers, they left feeling at ease. One girl put it simply: camp had become one of the most rewarding breaks of her life.
A few also wrote about the little things that made the week feel safe: being listened to when something was hard, having a schedule that could flex when someone needed it to.
One volunteer echoed the same sentiment from her own side, describing camp as “a place of refuge,” a chance for the girls to step outside their daily lives and just rest for the week.
Behind the Scenes
None of this happens without serious preparation. Our volunteers consistently told me how ready they felt heading into camp. Detailed workbooks, activity outlines, and orientation meetings covered everything from group dynamics to the realities of overnight logistics: cooking, laundry, dishes, keeping a household of students and counselors running smoothly.
That preparation didn’t erase all the hard parts. Living in close quarters for four days can be a lot on anyone. However, what made it manageable for our team was our group communication: leaning on each other, checking in constantly, and translating for one another. We were able to trust our team to step in the moment someone needed backup.
More than one volunteer told me the week changed something in them too, not just the girls. For some, it was a reminder of why they started teaching. For others, it was a deeper understanding of Korea’s child welfare system, or simply a sharper sense of patience and when to speak up versus letting something go.
For our Korean-fluent and Korean volunteers, the week also meant being a bridge, translating not just language but context, and stepping in when a well-meaning gesture needed a little cultural framing to land right.
Looking Ahead
The overwhelming feeling I heard from everyone, in their final takeaways, was gratitude. Every single volunteer told me they’d come back, and several already have, some for a second year running.
As one of them put it, camp gives the girls “consistent exposure to adults who are building them up and investing in them.” That, more than any single activity, is what a week in Busan is really all about.