25 years and counting...

It all started one morning when legendary actor and philanthropist Paul Newman recalled getting out of bed and suddenly being struck with a remarkable idea. It was 1985, fresh off the early success of Newman’s Own, a company Paul started that gave all of its profits after taxes to charity. As Newman’s Own products gained popularity, Paul began receiving letters from parents of children with serious illnesses asking him for help. They were stories that touched his heart and compelled him to search for a way to give back directly to those in need. That morning, the answer of how to help these families came to Paul clearly, as he pictured a magical camp where children with serious illnesses could go to “raise a little hell,” and enjoy the simple joys of childhood. Later, when Paul was asked what truly compelled him to start The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, he said “I wanted, I think, to acknowledge luck – the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, made especially savage for children, because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.”

As Paul became increasingly passionate about this project, he was joined and supported by dozens of other committed individuals, including his close friend and business partner A. E. Hotchner. With a picture of the camp built clearly in their minds, the two set out on a mission to find a way to bring this dream to life. First, Paul and Hotch traveled around the country to visit programs and medical facilities in order to better understand how they could ensure the program was medically sound and safe for all children. They also began a search for the land with the help of a team of people, eventually finding a pristine, several hundred acre lot in Ashford, Connecticut, where they were free to build a Wild West wonderland.

During the development phase, Paul was connected to incredible doctors and administrators at Yale-New Haven Hospital, like Dr. Howard Pearson, who were willing to help him in any way they could. With a team in place, Paul was determined to build the camp in just one year’s time. It took hard work and hundreds of people to make it happen, but Paul and his team met their goal dubbing the camp, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, after the rag tag bandits from Paul’s film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. During the first summer in 1988, camp welcomed more than 288 children.

25 years later, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp now serves over 20,000 children and family members each year free of charge through year round programming, not only at the camp site, but through an innovative Hospital Outreach Program®. The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp has changed countless lives in the more than two decades since Paul founded it, but most importantly, it has served as a shining example that continues to inspire other leaders around the world. Today, Paul’s vision has expanded to include 30 camps and programs around the world serving over 440,000 people in 50 countries since 1988.