Sunburst Projects began in 1982 with the first session of Camp Sunburst. At that time, our founder and Executive Director, Dr. Geri DeLaRosa-Brooks, PhD., was working as a neonatal nurse at San Francisco Children’s Hospital. Being touched by the children and families she witnessed struggling with life-threatening illness, she knew she wanted to do something outside of the medical model for these families. Thus, in the summer of 1982, along with her family and colleagues, DeLaRosa-Brooks started Camp Sunburst, the first summer camp in the Western United States for children with cancer.



In 1987, when AIDS was still widely viewed as a disease restricted to the gay community, DeLaRosa-Brooks recognized that HIV/AIDS had no face. Responding to the societal abandonment felt by parents with HIV/AIDS children, and the lack of a natural community of support, she met with professionals throughout the nation to further understand the growing needs of this emerging population.



Then in 1988, to address the unmet social/psychological and emotional needs of the growing numbers of children infected with the AIDS virus, Camp Sunburst held the nation’s first therapeutically designed summer camp for HIV/AIDS children and their families. Emerging out of Camp Sunburst, Sunburst Projects became incorporated as a 501(c) 3 organization in 1990.