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About SP/Mission
| History
| Fact Sheet
| Financials
| Staff
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 History
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 Sunburst Projects began with the first session of Camp Sunburst. During this time founder and Executive Director, Geri DeLaRosa-Brooks, Ph.D. was working at Children’s Hospital in San Francisco as a neonatal nurse. Touched by the children and families she worked with struggling with life-threatening illness, she envisioned a community of support for them outside of the medical model.
DeLaRosa-Brooks and her colleague Marta Johnson, also a neonatal nurse, started Camp Sunburst, the first summer camp in the Western United States for children with cancer and leukemia. Many of the children that attended Camp Sunburst had a dual diagnosis such as leukemia and autism. Camp Sunburst continued from 1982-1988 to become a summer program for children with multiple and complex diagnoses who were often unable to attend other available summer camp programs.
 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 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. As a result of becoming a national model program, today there are similar summer camps in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, California, Oregon, and other places throughout the U.S. Many of these camps across the nation have been started by Camp Sunburst volunteers.
 Acclaimed as a national pediatric advocacy group, Sunburst Projects, with the help of Carol DiPaolo, a parent who attended Camp Sunburst, Richard Carbone, Holly McCulloch, Faith Carr, Geri DeLaRosa-Brooks, and Jodi Kaufmann orchestrated the very first National Children with HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in Washington DC. For the sole purpose of raising public awareness and knowledge of HIV/AIDS in children throughout the country, this event assembled over 2,000 participants representing 24 states at the U. S. Capitol Mall. This endeavor was the first of its kind and marked Sunburst Projects as a leader in the defense of the rights of HIV/AIDS children and families.
 Sunburst Projects, through the efforts of Debbie Gutierrez, an HIV+ mother of 2 sons, receives its first Ryan White Care dollars to provide Respite Childcare services in Sonoma County and is now able to offer support groups for HIV/AIDS parents living with substance use issues.
Sunburst Projects through the help of many foundations and donors broadened its scope of family support services in Sonoma County to include family centered case management, support groups, and summer day camps.
Sunburst Projects initiates and becomes an active member of a new Sacramento County task force, The Family Support Network. The purpose of the task force was to look at the needs of HIV+ families with dependent children in the Sacramento EMA and to discuss the possible delivery of respite childcare services to HIV+ families with children.
 Mireya Herrera-Bayard, LCSW joins Sunburst Projects staff as the first Sacramento Client Services Director. As a certified group psychotherapist and a pioneer in the field of providing services to HIV positive women, she continues to facilitate Sacramento’s only HIV+ Women’s therapeutic support group, that today is under the umbrella of Sunburst Projects.
Because of Mireya’s strong advocacy in 2001 Sunburst Projects was awarded its first 3 year Ryan White Title I contract with the Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, and began providing respite child care services to Sacramento, Placer and El Dorado County families.
 Sonoma Counties to include mental health and family case management services. Ryan White Title IV Care dollars are awarded in Sonoma County to provide additional services to HIV positive women, children, and youth. The Taylor Family Foundation opens Camp Arroyo in Livermore, California which becomes the new home of Camp Sunburst.
Thanks to new drug treatments, the first generation of children born with the HIV virus is now living into adolescence. As living with HIV/AIDS challenges these youth, the needs for program development and for teen services provided by Sunburst Projects become increasingly necessary.
Because teens are living longer and have needs that have never before been addressed, Sunburst Projects has been focused on developing new teen services including support groups, empowerment and leadership training, sexuality workshops, peer education, counseling and life skills programs.
Camp Sunburst’s specially designed teen camp program offers a leadership program that empowers teens to become advocates for themselves and junior camp counselors. Teens are taught how to educate and support others who are HIV positive and how to make healthy decisions. Other therapeutic activities educate teens about the importance of drug adherence, safer sex, and avoiding risky behavior with the outcome being smoother transition into becoming emotionally healthy young adults.
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Donate Online Now
Your donation provides
essential services and
helps us bring hope
to families with
dependent children
living with HIV/AIDS.
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