Our History
In 1985, an assistant pastor named Wayne Tesch and his wife, Diane, saw a need to provide hope to looked after children in Costa Mesa, California. They created a week-long summer camp for looked after children ages 6-12.
After the first five years of hosting camps through their church, the Tesch’s realised the need was bigger than just Costa Mesa. So in 1990, Wayne left his position at the church to form and become CEO of the new charity, Royal Family KIDS Camp, Inc.
In 2021 Royal Family KIDS, Inc. became For The Children, incorporating new programmes into the brand which now include Royal Family KIDS Mentoring and Bridge to Belonging. Today, over 100,000 children have attended camps and mentoring programmes around the world. There are currently over 200 programmes in the United States and over 40 camp programmes in 9 other countries…and growing.
In 2015, Bryan and Misty Elliott brought the Royal Family KIDS Camp model to the United Kingdom, which in 2018, after three consecutive successful camps, became Starfish KIDS Camp under the charity umbrella of The Starfish Alliance.
