Camp Beacon 2026 Camper Application

Camp Beacon is Kentucky’s first residential summer camp designed for and with LGBTQ youth ages twelve to seventeen. We offer a safe, fun, and affirming community while providing a typical camp experience at no cost to participants. Additionally, Camp Beacon conducts outreach to youth in rural Kentucky and partners with existing grassroots organizations to develop LGBTQ community year-round.

This year, there will be two sessions of Camp Beacon, with 30 campers at each session. The first session will be for campers 12-14 and will be from July 22-25. The second session will be for campers 15-17 and will be from July 26-29. 

Camp Beacon is and will continue to be completely free to campers, beyond a $25 registration fee.

To apply for a place at camp, please complete the form below. 

Campers will be selected via a lottery system. We will have 9 slots for 12 year olds, 9 slots for 13 year olds, and so on. On April 30, we will randomly select half of the campers from each age, including one slot for a returning camper in each age range.  On May 30, we will randomly select the remaining campers from each age from all campers who have submitted their application, both from April and from May. 

So in summary, campers will be selected and notified both in April and in May. If you do not get selected in April, your application will automatically be reconsidered in May. You have the highest chance of being selected if you apply before April 30, but if you apply in May, you still have a chance of being selected. 

If you have questions, please email campbeaconky@gmail.com.

If you do not have a steady/consistent address, you can put a PO Box or the address of a business near where you stay most nights.

For legal reasons, the parent and/or legal guardian does not need to be the person to complete this form but they are required to be aware that the camper is attending camp. If the camper is chosen to go to camp, a parent and/or legal guardian will be required to sign a form saying that they have decision-making power and are allowing the camper to go to Camp Beacon.

The goal of the following fields is to make sure we are able to connect with someone about the camper lottery and the next steps after that. We do primarily communicate through email. Almost all of the fields here are optional but we do need the contact information for someone in order to connect around attending camp. 

This is our first year doing two sessions of camp so we are still perfecting the process. It is most likely that campers will be sorted as we listed above, where 12-14 year olds will be at the first session from July 22-25 and 15-17 year olds will be at the second session from July 26-29.

In case something we are not anticipating happens and the plan needs to change, please complete this section so that all of our info is in one place. 

As a disclaimer for the next question, Camp Beacon is and always will be available at no cost to campers (beyond a minor registration fee, which can be waived if needed). 

We are funded through grants and donations, and when we speak to donors, we want to tell them about the teenagers their donations support and what their money does for the campers. 

Your camper's ability to attend camp will not be affected by your family's income or ability to pay for camp.