Camp Erin Returns to Malibu

Palisadian Irwin Feinberg Explains What Working With OUR HOUSE Means to Him

By AVA KERKORIAN | Intern

Over the course of one weekend, children and teens all over Los Angeles—including Pacific Palisades—will get the opportunity to attend a summer camp with powerful intentions.

Camp Erin, which takes place from Aug. 17-19, is a summer program that is designed to help children from ages 6 to 17 heal after the death of a loved one.

The OUR HOUSE Grief Support Center, along with the Moyer Foundation, will host the camp in Malibu’s Camp Bloomfield, free of charge to any children and teens who wish to attend. OUR HOUSE is a nonprofit organization dedicated to “[providing] the community with grief support services, education, resources and hope.”

The chair for the OUR HOUSE board of directors, Palisadian Irwin Feinberg, began working with the organization 17 years ago. It all started when he was talking to an executive director at a networking lunch. He said he was captivated by what the director had to say, and asked what he could do to help the group.

Shortly after, Feinberg joined the board of directors and has continued to make an impact with the organization ever since.

Feinberg reiterated the purpose of the entire camp experience.

“OUR HOUSE’s goal is to create a place to support people going through the process of losing a loved one so they could open up to life and hope, and so that they don’t have to forget the lost loved one, but they can learn to deal with it and remember that person,” Feinberg told the Palisadian-Post. “Camp Erin is an extension of that where kids can go and feel that they are not alone.”

By integrating fun, classic summer camp activities with grief support and counseling, Camp Erin aims to provide children and teens with a secure place to openly discuss their grief and learn to cope with it, while also inspiring hope and optimism.

Activities at the site range from rock climbing and swimming, to trauma-informed yoga and projects to commemorate lost loved ones.

One such special project is on the second night of camp when campers engage in a luminary ceremony, in which lanterns with written messages or drawings are lit and set out across the pool. This memorable moment gives the campers another chance to say goodbye to their loved one, who had passed away at some point during the last three years.

In the 10 years Camp Erin has been in place, the event has never failed to provide meaning for Feinberg.

“It is amazing to watch people as they go through the grieving process and experience the hope and the life-affirming aspects of their lives, and how they get there by supporting each other … That’s really the beauty of the process.”