United Survivor Voices: Kids Across America

It’s taken me a while to publicly talk about my experiences because I was stuck in fear for so long … I’m so willing to go there these days… And publicly, because privately is where the trauma happened.

In 2021, a survivor-led instagram account called After Camp Care launched as a safe space for survivors of abuse at Kids Across America to share their stories and connect. Kids Across America (“KAA”) is Kanakuk’s segregated camp for “urban youth.” Although the After Camp Care account is no longer active, the KAA survivor community remains connected, and the public movement of united KAA survivor voices and their allies seeking healing and justice continues. Both former campers and former staff members have come forward as survivors of KAA abuse. 

The following alleged cases of abuse were reported in public KAA survivor posts, re-published by request:

 

Abuse by Kids Across America Executive Leadership:

  • KAA executive leadership refused to allow one of their young female staff members to leave the camp early in order to be with her family after her father passed away. 
  • KAA executive leadership regularly berate their staff members, until they cry in front of the entire team of staff. 
  • During a car trip, KAA executive leadership stopped their car and forced a young KAA female staff member to exit their vehicle mid-journey due to their crying. 
  • KAA executive leadership regularly make statements about female staff bodies, including “stop looking at me with those eyes.”
  • KAA executive leadership regularly called some of their Black female staff members “camp gangsta.”

 

Abuse by KAA-Affiliate, Memphis Athletic Ministries:

KAA recruits campers and Kaleos from a variety of after school programs and sports ministries. One particularly close affiliation is with Memphis Athletic Ministries (MAM), which has multiple allegations of child sexual abuse and failures in mandatory reporting from MAM coaches who were recruited from KAA. It’s also alleged that these cases of child sexual abuse at MAM have been reported to KAA leaders without consequence. MAM survivors identify as KAA survivors due to the close affiliation, and traveling to KAA as part of their MAM participation, and have requested that their public statements be shared as part of the KAA survivor voice:

  • An adult MAM coach (former KAA staff member) groomed minors participating in MAM by convincing them to sleep half-naked in a bed with them. The coach was later let go for being homosexual, but no action was taken regarding the abuse. 
  • When an adult MAM coach (former KAA staff member) was reported to MAM leadership for sexually abusing a 16-year-old student in their care, MAM leadership dismissed the report after conducting an “internal investigation” that did not include or involve the reporting survivor. Following the report and “investigation,” the abusive coach was promoted. The MAM leadership who received and dismissed the report currently serve as as KAA management. 

 

Read another KAA survivor testimony: Voice of a KAA Alum

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