In my early 20’s I worked at the medical camps The Hole In The Wall Gang Camp, Boggy Creek Gang Camp and Camp Mak-A-Dream and the kids always blew me away with their ability to source joy even in the face of enormous obstacles. They were my heroes.

Now that I am a parent, I think about those kids’ families and how brave they had to be to send their kids to camp, medicines, chemo and all. I imagine they were stone cold terrified, but believed in the power of summer camp to heal in ways that medicine cannot. They let their kids go, which is frankly the hardest part of parenting. They let them go because they hoped—hoped to pack in some childhood, hoped their kiddo would be safe, hoped for hope.

Making memories give us reasons to get well, get through, get back to camp next summer.

Camp is summer, and summer is August. It seems so right to have our entire month of August dedicated to OPTIMISM.

Optimism is yours for the taking.

Without it we couldn’t go on. Dark days, hard work, broken hearts. We choose to believe. We choose to live, every second we got.

Even more fitting is that our theme partner this month is the amazing Life is Good company. I first started seeing the Life is Good gear at camp—bald heads and Life is Good shirts were everywhere. The stick figure guy (Jake) was omnipresent, and Life is Good was a manifesto of sorts. Literally worn on their hearts was a reminder of the simple, singular power of optimism.

Life is Good is dedicated to spreading the power of optimism—via shirts, events, partnerships and story. We are thrilled to support that mission.

All month long we will feature stories, videos and ideas to support this manifesto. Life is Good, it really, really is.

Life is Good donates 10% of its annual net profits to the Life is Good Kids Foundation. The foundation partners with organizations serving the most vulnerable children by helping to transform the people and practices that build a world in which life is good for all kids. Learn how you can hep at Lifeisgood.com

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About the Author

Elke

Elke Govertsen is a entrepreneur and founder of Mamalode. She has been featured in Real Simple, Forbes, Where Women Create, Ad Tech, and listed as one of Origin Magazine's "Top 100 Creatives." She has been a speaker at The Girls Lounge, Adweek, C2Montreal, HATCH, TEDx and (her favorite) in classrooms. She speaks on a variety of topics from entrepreneurship to overcoming obstacles. She loves consulting in the areas of community design, storytelling and brand building. Her special skills include extreme bootstrapping, overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities. Of the many things she has learned by doing Mamalode, her ability to work with absolute chaos/kids/mess just might be the best. She is learning that slowing down creates more impact.