Campout for the Cause began as a music and wellness gathering in the mountains of Colorado. When Emmy was diagnosed in 2016, and the event dedicated itself to Emmy’s cause the following summer, something shifted.
People made prayer flags. They brought them to the event and left them there. They approached Mike and Aja and Mike’s mom with the kind of warmth that can only come from people who have been following a story from the outside and feel it as if it were their own.
“I think it changed the feeling of the show last year with people making prayer flags and approaching myself or my wife or my mom,” Mike said in a 2018 article. “It’s a completely different vibe. You’re creating this community on site, this intentional community. They’re not only down for a good time, they’re down for a good cause.”
The prayer flag tradition lives in the design of this page. The guestbook below is built in that same spirit: people showing up, leaving their mark, making something collective out of something that started in one small family.
Campout for the Cause later became Smalltown Gathering. Emmy’s Friends is returning as a partner in 2026.