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Serious Support for Hole in the Wall Gang Camp

Pediatric cancer survivor Evan McGloin is putting his healthy body to work for a cause he loves to support: The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.

Now 26 years old, Evan was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma at age 14, just before the start of his freshman year at Guilford High School (GHS). The bone cancer was found while Evan was seeing a doctor for a football injury.

“I went through a year of treatment—chemo, surgery and radiation,” Evan says. “In just under a year, I was cancer-free, and that following summer, I was a camper at Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. I was 15 years old when I was a camper. It was my only year as a camper there, and it was pretty life-changing.”

As a camper, Evan arrived as a teen coping with the draining combination of recently completing extensive treatment and dealing with a cancer diagnosis at such a young age.

“I was pretty angry when I got there,” he recalls. “But I went from being an angry teenager to being able to deal with the hand life gave me. I came into camp one week after close to a year of being in and out of hospitals and missing a lot of school and not doing all the things I was used to doing. Then I got to camp and got to be a kid again. It’s a place where kids with major illnesses can kick back and raise hell, and just be kids.”

Evan says his interaction with other campers as well as with counselors and staff set him back on a positive life path.

“I left much more at peace with where things stood and what I had been through. My family likes to say the doctors saved my life, but The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp saved my soul,” he says.

Evan went on to return as a junior counselor and then camp staffer. The compassion and caring Evan experienced as both camper and counselor also led him to decide on a career in social work.

“Camp saved my life as a kid, and in college I went back as junior counselor for two summers and then for three summers I was working there as a staff member,” he says. “Those three summers got me interested in social work.”

Today, Evan is a social worker with an organization supporting Hartford area veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. He says he enjoys the satisfying work but says, “I still have a lot of love for Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.”

Luckily, Evan found the perfect way to continue to give back to the place that changed his life: joining Team Hole in the Wall.

“It’s one of the fundraising arms of the organization,” says Evan. “You can become a member and sort of ‘do your own thing’ to fund raise. I fund raise for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp exclusively through running events.”

Recently, Evan headed back to camp as a member of Team Hole in the Wall, running his former camp’s signature Bandit 5K. But that’s not the first run Evan’s made to raise awareness and money for the cause. He started off running a Turkey Trot in Denver, Colorado in 2013. This year, he headed up a team of runners in the The Hole in the Wall GAng Camp’s signature and challenging Ragnar Relay Cape Cod, covering a course stretching 200 miles from Hull to Provincetown, Massachusetts, in May 2015.

“That was one of the big ones last spring in Cape Cod, and I plan to do it again this spring,” says Evan.

Evan’s commitment is “inspiring,” says Beth Starkin, communications manager for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.

“Though the demands of his career no longer allow him to volunteer at camp, Evan remains dedicated to being a part of camp, now by running and raising money for camp through Team Hole in the Wall,” she says. “His commitment to giving back to the camp and ensuring other kids are able to have the same experiences he did is inspiring.”

Evan now lives in East Haven (his parents still reside in Guilford), but the GHS Class of 2007 alumnus continues giving back to his childhood hometown, too.

“I’m still involved in the Guilford community through the Scouting troop I grew up with, Troop 471 out of St. George’s” says Evan.

Blessed with being cancer-free, Evan says he plans to continue taking on race challenges to fund raise for The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp as a member of Team Hole in the Wall. He also wants to help spread the word that supporting the camp not only helps continue the summer camp itself, but also supports year-round programming under the camp umbrella, which includes hospital outreach, community and family events, and more.

“It’s also grown through the years so it’s not just The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp” in Connecticut, Evan notes.

All of the camps are run with the mission of creating fun and friendship for seriously ill children and their families. The camp’s motto is “Serious Fun.”

“There’s a whole network of camps around the world that have the same mission and do it in slightly different ways. But I hold this camp near and dear to my heart,” says Evan.

Finally, Evan also wants to let folks know that there are many ways to support this very worthy cause.

“Everyone has the opportunity to donate or volunteer,” he says. “Even if it’s to volunteer to change the bed linens during the summer, take advantage of it. The camp doesn’t fly without volunteers.”

For more information, visit www.holeinthewallgang.org