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 Although the After Camp Care account is no longer active, the KAA survivor community remains connected, and the public movement of united KAA survivor voices and their allies seeking healing and justice continues.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:

My favorite thing to do as a child was to horseback ride and I loved being around animals – especially horses. I took riding lessons, helped out (as best I could) at the local stables, and I’d spend a few weeks during my summers at a horseback riding camp.

One summer was different. I was about eleven or twelve years old and my parents announced they were traveling to Missouri during the summer. They would find something appropriate for me to do while my dad attended to some business and my mom explored Branson and relaxed at the hotel. I was going to camp – a new camp.

I am the mother of a son who was molested by a Kanakuk counselor named Paul Green in 1994 and Joe White was told about it.

It seems a little late in 2003 to be training counselors when they already had problems with counselors before 2003.

In 2021, over 20 years after I had been sexually abused at Kanakuk, I Googled “Kanakuk Kamps” and learned that I was not alone. After reading the recent articles, I discovered that Pete Newman had other victims, and that the camp knew about Pete Newman sexually assaulting children as early as 1999. I also learned for the first time that there were other convicted child sexual abusers affiliated with Kanakuk. Once my family read the articles, too, they believed me.

Kanakuk Kamps put out an unsigned statement in its “Press” section on March 30, 2021, in response to a deluge of articles exposing the history of camp staff’s crimes against children. They say that they “are forever sorry.”

Using the same language victims and their families have heard for more than a decade, the statement alludes to Pete Newman’s arrest but ignores other convicted sex offenders affiliated with Kanakuk. They did more recently acknowledge Lee Bradberry’s crimes in a letter to families. Victims of other known Kanakuk-affiliated abusers remain unacknowledged and unseen, and survivors continue to express that they feel they are being treated as a liability, rather than as people suffering in silence.

From the perspective of a victim under an NDA and confidentiality agreement fraudulently induced by Kanakuk Kamps— we deserve the right to have all of our voices heard and to bring our truth to light. We as survivors, family members, and loved ones should have the power to legally hold Joe White and Kanakuk Kamps responsible for the gross negligence they have exhibited, as well as all damages their negligence has ultimately caused.

In this video you will see Kanakuk leaders explaining under oath what they knew years before Newman was arrested in 2009. You will see Joe White CEO, Doug Goodwin President, and Kris Cooper former director state that they knew that Newman was getting naked with under age boys on multiple occasions as early as 1999, and also sleeping one on one with them. These leaders dismissed his behavior as immature and didn’t fire him until there were charges for his arrest in 2009.

The dozens of Kanakuk abuse survivors from the 1950s to 2022 who joined their voices in An Open Letter From Kanakuk Survivors continue to petition Joe White and Kanakuk Ministries to admit to known failures, release victims from their NDAs, and invite an independent investigation.

The February 25, 2022 statements made by Kanakuk Kamps and Letter for From Joe White have not responded to the survivors’ pleas for accountability nor provided us with any remedies that prioritize our healing, our stories, and our desire to make the world safer for children everywhere. Until there is accountability, Kanakuk cannot be considered safe.

For years, a former staffer at Kanakuk Kamps, one of the country’s most popular Christian summer camps, abused dozens of boys. Vice News speaks with survivors, who say the camp has used confidentiality clauses to keep them quiet.

From the perspective of a victim under an NDA and confidentiality agreement— we deserve the right to have all of our voices heard and to bring our truth to light. We as survivors, family members, and loved ones should have the power to legally hold Joe White and Kanakuk Kamps responsible for the gross negligence they have exhibited, as well as all damages their negligence has ultimately caused.

Not only did they blatantly disregard explicit signs of abuse, but they have also done everything in their power to bury this truth from sight. They fraudulently did not disclose any signs of abuse clearly known by the administration at the time to any families or to the authorities when the abuses first occurred, which is required by law.

I am a husband, a father, a son, brother, uncle, friend, a local community member, a chosen child of God, and a Kanakuk Child Sexual Abuse Survivor. It’s been over 20 years since the abuse began for me by Pete Newman of Kanakuk Kamps. For years I tried to forget about it, stuffed it away in the depths of my mind only sharing it with my wife and counselor. The shame I experienced as a victim is something that I do not wish to bear on anyone. There is not a person on this earth that deserves that amount of shame and guilt.

For years I never wanted to think about it, I didn’t want to read the articles, talk about it, or even acknowledge that it happened in my life. It was much easier to pretend it didn’t exist and move on, in fact, it was necessary. For my survival and any chance of normalcy in my adult life, I felt I had to believe it didn’t happen and I had to make sure no one knew.

As a father of one of the victims I was very offended, and my heart ached when Joe White referred to my son as a drop of water. Those words brought back so many horrible memories that I dropped to my knees and cried and asked, “why my son?” My son is beautiful and wonderfully made. He did not deserve this. None of these boys deserved this. And had it not been for Joe White personally encouraging me to allow my son to spend time with Pete, I never would have. Joe White, I hold you responsible.

Additionally, Joe White also knew there would be a chance that my son would be naked with Pete. He knew that Pete would do these kinds of activities with boys and allowed him to continue his abuse. My son was not the first and was not the last. And Joe knew that.

As a mother of a victim, I was furious to learn Kanakuk is claiming that the Plaintiffs requested to be entered into an NDA! Nothing could be further from the truth! My husband, son and I personally had to fight Joe White and his team of legal advisors against the NDA.

We were threatened that if we did not sign the NDA our lawsuit would drag on for years in the appellate courts which would delay the counseling and healing of our son. They beat us down emotionally, mentally, and spiritually with intense pressure to sign the NDA which left us crippled by fear and pure exhaustion!

Sexual assault                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Everyone says it’s not your fault                                                                                                                                            

Like a robber just came in and took everything in the vault                                   

Except the vault is my heart                                                                                                                                                             

And my emotions are everywhere                                                                                                                                                   

So where do I start                                                                                                                                                                         

Should I go to the prison and tell him he ruined my life                                  

And that what he did to me will make it hard to find a wife              

Or do I stay bottled up                                                                                                                                                 

March 13, 2014

Joe White, President

Kanakuk Kamps

Branson, MO

Mr. White,

I cannot begin the salutation with “dear”.  I do not look upon you dearly.  When I think of you, I feel pain and betrayal.

We trusted you with our children. We looked up to you. We believed the things you said about camp and specifically, your camps. Over a ten year period, we sent our children to camp. We planned vacations around camp schedules. We worked sports around camp schedules. For years, I was one of you and your camps’ biggest fans. We bought your books. We gave to your ministries. We supported Kanakuk, K-Life, Kids Across America, and you. We believed in your mission.

Pete Newman abused and groomed me starting in 1996, which was Newman’s second year as counselor, through when I went to college.
 
My Kamp family was never contacted by Kanakuk. I found out through the internet after he was imprisoned.
 
Kanakuk claims they contacted victims and sent a mass email; however, in 1996, email was not yet a popular form of communication as everything was handled on those ‘Blue Boys’ information sheets, handwritten postcards and standard mail.  Even with an upgrade to an electronic records system (“Circuitry”), they still had old contact information.  Therefore, rather than sending a handful of emails, Kanakuk Kamps should have reached out in every way possible including the information from those ‘Blue Boys’ sheets (physical addresses, emails and phone numbers).  The system update did not delete all contact information this institution possessed.

I was excited to experience crosstalk for the first time as an adult. I’ve experienced crosstalk before, along time ago as a kamper but the experience was so far from my memory by the time I saw it again.

I remember the preparations and quiet stillness of the day. I remember the work that went into it. And I also remember the sound of a human body hitting the ground and the screams that followed when the actor was being beat. I remember how I struggled to stay present and the flashbacks of watching domestic abuse from my own past. I even started to visualize someone I love getting beat half to death during this “reenactment” of the crucifixion. I watched as the actors “pretended” to beat a man.

My experience at Kanakuk as a gay teenager shattered my sense of self and seriously compromised my wellbeing and mental health. After confessing that I experienced same sex attraction to my counselor out of immense guilt cultivated by the many fire and brimstone sermons targeting the LGBTQ+ community, I was subjected to dehumanization and tactics considered to be a form of conversion therapy. Leadership threatened to tell my parents and kick me out of the camp and forced me to meet with a member of leadership daily who shamed me, dehumanized me, and attempted to pressure me to change my sexual orientation. Additionally, I was forced to shower separately from the girls in my cabin. Even before I told a counselor about my sexuality, I relapsed with self harming because of the immense shame the sermons triggered in me.