The Institute for Humanist Studies supports Camp Quest in several important ways. Our headquarters is located at their Humanist Center in Albany, NY thanks to their generous donation of office space. Through their grant fund, they have provided grants that helped start each of our six currently operating summer camps.
The Institute for Humanist Studies also offers resources that may be of interest to Camp Quest parents, campers, and staff. Their free weekly e-zine Humanist Network News features news relevant to the freethought community, Agnostic Mom's monthly column, Molleen Matsumura's Sweet Reason advice column, along with upcoming events and cartoons. They also offer an online Humanist Education program featuring a free introduction to Humanism course, as well as courses on science, law and politics, psychology, religion, and ethics from a Humanist perspective.
Camp Quest is the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view.
The purpose of Camp Quest is to provide children of freethinking parents a residential summer camp dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.
Camp Quest was first held in 1996 and until 2002 was operated by the Free Inquiry Group, Inc. (FIG) of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The idea for the project originated with Edwin Kagin and he and his wife Helen served as Camp Directors for the first ten years of the original Camp Quest, retiring at the end of the 2005 camp session.
Currently Camp Quest, Inc., an independent 501(c)(3) educational non-profit, operates the Ohio Camp Quest and works to coordinate with and support the other independently governed Camp Quest programs. Six Camp Quest summer camps currently offer programs across North America.