About
About Serve Camp
Serve Camp exists to inspire & empower young people to make life happen! It’s a unique, hands-on experience where young people can discover for themselves the power of love to bring life. It’s a camp driven by the life & message of Jesus who we consider to be the greatest example of a life maker. Like Jesus, you could say we have a ridiculous passion to make the lives of people and our communities better.
Serve Camp is built around love projects. Love projects are community service projects designed to meet the needs of a person, family, community, and/or organizations helping others. Through a variety of love projects, young people are exposed to the power of finding common ground with people and loving them at their point of need. Most importantly, young people learn through experience that absolute humility (self-denial) leads to absolute love, which produces immeasurable life. It’s about getting our hands dirty (figuratively and literally) loving other people. It’s about being inspired and empowered to dream of a life as life-making servant leaders. It’s about choosing giving over getting, sacrifice over entertainment, and love over selfishness. Serve Camp isn’t about “I” but others.
Frankly, as you can see, Serve Camp is not your “typical” summer camp. Yeah, we have a blast but it’s so much bigger. It’s a summer experience that we have seen become a movement in young people. We have seen how young people’s first hand experience with the power of love to make life happen has changed and inspired them to live and think differently about themselves, others, and their life.
This is why we say, Serve Camp is the best, most life-giving camp. Beyond the thousands of young people’s lives that have been changed, we’ve been recognized as among the best summer camps by parents in Northern Virginia, our first location, for three consecutive years. We’ve even been recognized on the floor of Congress (we even got a fancy plaque for it!). We want you to experience this for yourself firsthand, so join us this summer!
About the Directors
Sal & Jamie D’Agostino
Executive Director & Co-Founder
Myrtle Beach
With a love for young people and a vision to inspire & empower young people to make life happen, Sal & Jamie (34 weeks pregnant with her 4th child – see pic) D’Agostino began Serve Camp with 17 teens in their Leesburg, VA living room in 2010. Now, coming up on our 14th year, Serve Camp has grown beyond our wildest imagination. 2024 is bringing vision expansion. As we often like to say, More Love, More Life. This is the year we are launching our first of many new Serve Camp branches. Having vacationed as a family in Myrtle for eighteen years, Sal & Jamie felt the need to move to Carolina Forest to launch the Myrtle Beach branch. New City, Same Mission. Collectively, we are chomping at the bit to serve side by side with the young people of Myrtle Beach this summer to make the lives of people and the Myrtle Beach community better.
Melissa Wareham
Loudoun Director
Loudoun
I am proud to say I was one of the 17 campers to experience the humble beginnings of Serve Camp! And since that first week 14 years ago, I have not missed a single day that Serve Camp has been in session. You may have read a few phrases we love to use at camp: “Making life happen”; “Giving over getting”; “Love leads to life”. Throughout my experience as a camper, I learned the value of these statements and was able to see, firsthand, how my acts of love were changing lives in the community (and my own life too!). After so many summers experiencing this myself, I realized I wanted to have a part in providing this opportunity for other young people in Loudoun. There are so many highlights throughout the summer, but what is the best part of Serve Camp to me? Watching young people relax and have fun. Growing up in Loudoun, I know the academic, social, and extracurricular stress that kids and teens are under. I feel so privileged to provide a space for kids and teens to let loose, be themselves, and grow in confidence as they see the impact they can make in the lives of others.