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Tuesday, November 10, 2026Nov 10

Kennedy: Kids learn how to deal with loss at grief camp in Georgia’s Blue Ridge mountains

Children gather in Mountain City, Ga., for a camp devoted to helping young people deal with the death of a parent or sibling.
Children gather in Mountain City, Ga., for a camp devoted to helping young people deal with the death of a parent or sibling. Children gather in Mountain City, Ga., for a camp devoted to helping young people deal with the death of a parent or sibling.

Keith Morin, now 18, was 4 years old in 2002 when his firefighter father died in a hang-gliding accident in the mountains of Vermont.

Morin remembers riding to his Dad’s landing spot with his mom, and then realizing something had gone terribly wrong.

“As he was turning, my father’s glider fell out of the sky,” Morin recalls. “He fell like 400 feet and struck some power lines.”

When his father regained consciousness after being helicoptered to a hospital, he told Keith “Everything will be OK. I love you.”

photo Children gather in Mountain City, Ga., for a camp devoted to helping young people deal with the death of a parent or sibling.

Ultimately, though, everything was not OK.