Building on What Works to Create What Comes Next

Why The Leon Levine Foundation used impact investing to help protect 1,200 Jewish camp beds and advance the future of Jewish camp

Sometimes, growing something means creating what does not yet exist.

Sometimes, it means making sure strong, proven capacity remains part of what comes next.

At The Leon Levine Foundation, we have become increasingly clear about the role immersive experiences can play in building vibrant Jewish communities. Experiences like Jewish overnight camp give young people the opportunity to build friendships, deepen their Jewish identity, develop a sense of belonging, and form connections that can last well beyond the summer.

That is why scaling access to immersive Jewish experiences has become an important part of our strategy. We want thousands more Jewish individuals across North and South Carolina to have those opportunities.

Jewish overnight camp is one of the most evidence-backed ways to help make that happen.

We believe increasing participation is possible, and part of making that possible is ensuring there are enough strong camps and enough capacity to welcome more children.

This summer, 1,200 of those spaces were suddenly at risk.

A relationship that started before the crisis

Our interest in Blue Star Camps began long before its future became uncertain.

More than a year ago, as we began thinking more deeply about what it would take to significantly increase Jewish camp participation among Carolina families, Blue Star became part of that conversation.

Founded in Hendersonville in 1948 and operated by its founding family for nearly eight decades, Blue Star Camps has introduced generations of children to Jewish life through summer camp. Operating with a strong reputation, Blue Star Camps helped establish Western North Carolina as a destination for immersive Jewish experiences, drawing families from across the country to the Blue Ridge Mountains each summer. Approximately 100 campers from the Carolinas attend each year, alongside children from across the Southeast and beyond.

Blue Star is also unusual. It has historically operated as a for-profit camp, while much of the Jewish camp field is nonprofit.

For us, that raised an important question. Was the experience itself delivering the kind of Jewish connection, belonging, and identity our strategy seeks to strengthen?

So, our team went to see it.

Program Director Jen Rosen spent a day at Blue Star observing camp life, talking with its leaders, and getting a closer look at the experience it creates for campers and counselors.

The answer was clear.

Blue Star was providing the kind of immersive Jewish experience we believe can play an important role in strengthening Jewish identity and community connection.

That visit led to exploratory conversations about how Blue Star might connect more intentionally to our broader efforts to grow Jewish camp participation across the Carolinas. There was no immediate transaction in mind; there was simply curiosity about what might be possible.

Then the situation changed.

When capacity became the issue

Earlier this summer, the majority financial owner of Blue Star’s property entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of a much larger financial crisis involving a national portfolio of summer camps.

The circumstances were separate from Blue Star’s camp operations and the work of the founding family that had led the camp for decades. But because the entity was part of the bankruptcy, Blue Star’s future would be determined through a court-supervised sale process.

Initially, there appeared to be a path for the founding family and a group of supporters to regain control of the property.

Then, just days before the auction, the situation changed dramatically.

It became clear that the property could be sold to another buyer, with no guarantee that it would continue operating as a Jewish camp. More capital and better loan terms were required to ensure Blue Star Camps’ survival. Without those conditions, it was unlikely that the camp would remain.

That put approximately 1,200 existing camp beds at risk.

For TLLF, that changed the equation.

We are working toward a future in which significantly more Jewish children from the Carolinas experience overnight camp. Losing 1,200 established beds would have made that goal significantly harder to reach.

Those beds represented decades of infrastructure, land, facilities, operating knowledge, and community trust. Replacing that capacity would not be simple. It would take significant time, capital, and leadership.

At that moment, the connection between our long-term growth strategy and the immediate opportunity in front of us became clear.

Using capital differently

The timeline required a different kind of response.

Traditional grantmaking is an important part of how TLLF advances its mission. We are fortunate to partner with exceptional organizations across the Jewish camp ecosystem that are expanding access, strengthening the camp experience, and helping more children participate. Those partnerships remain essential to our strategy.

But grantmaking was not the right tool for this situation. As a for-profit entity, Blue Star Camps would not meet TLLF’s grantmaking criteria. This opportunity required substantial capital, financial discipline, and the ability to move quickly.

Our impact investing strategy gave us another option.

Impact investing allows us to deploy capital with the expectation of both mission impact and financial return. It gives the Foundation another way to use its resources for good when the right opportunity intersects with our mission.

This was one of those moments.

A group, led by Blue Star’s founding family, came together around an effort to preserve the property and shape the camp’s next chapter. TLLF brought its impact investing experience to the table, shaped the solution, and committed $2.3 million structured as a bridge loan alongside other supporters.

This was an investment, separate from our philanthropic grantmaking. But the reason for making it was deeply connected to our mission.

Intentional, thoughtful boldness

Moving quickly is not the same as moving impulsively.

By the time Blue Star faced this crisis, our team had already spent more than a year thinking about the role camp should play in our Vibrant Jewish Communities strategy. We had visited Blue Star. We had begun building a relationship with its leadership. We understood its place in the regional ecosystem.

That work gave us a foundation for action when the circumstances suddenly became urgent.

Turning that conviction into a deal required something more: partnership across our leadership and investments teams. Rosen worked closely with Executive Vice President Justin Steinschriber and Director of Investments Kelley Shepherd, who each played an instrumental role in evaluating the opportunity, navigating an unusually complex and compressed transaction, and shaping the investment that ultimately helped bring the deal across the finish line.

Tom Lawrence, our president and CEO, brought the opportunity to the Foundation’s board at a moment when the timeline was compressed and the path forward was anything but conventional. The board understood both the urgency and the strategic opportunity. They asked questions, weighed the risks, and trusted our team to move with speed and conviction.

That trust mattered. Intentional, thoughtful boldness is not simply about making big decisions quickly. It requires a shared understanding of strategy, the discipline to know when an opportunity fits, and the confidence across leadership and governance to act when it does.

For us, that is what intentional, thoughtful boldness looks like.

It means doing the work to understand what matters before an opportunity arrives. It means being willing to ask whether the traditional philanthropic playbook is sufficient. And when strategy, mission, and opportunity align, it means having the conviction to use the right tool.

Legacy and the responsibility to use capital for good

It was during that board conversation that another connection surfaced.

Sandra Levine shared that she had spent her own childhood summers at Blue Star. Long before this investment, long before the Foundation existed, the camp had been part of her own Jewish story.

That history did not drive the decision. But it gave the moment an unexpected resonance.

A camp that helped shape Mrs. Levine’s early connection to Jewish life now has the opportunity to do the same for generations of children to come.

For us, it is clear there is a deeper connection between this decision and the legacy that guides our work.

The Leon Levine Foundation exists because Leon Levine built something over a lifetime and chose to use that success to strengthen people and communities.

Today, we have the responsibility to think just as seriously about how the Foundation’s capital can create lasting impact.

Sometimes that means making a grant. Sometimes it means helping organizations build capacity, bringing partners together, or investing in the infrastructure that makes stronger communities possible. And sometimes it means recognizing that an investment can accomplish something a grant cannot.

Our resources give us more than one way to make an impact. Our responsibility is to choose thoughtfully among them.

Creating room for what comes next

Blue Star will continue operating as a privately owned Jewish camp. Its founding family will continue a legacy that began nearly eight decades ago. And 1,200 camp beds remain part of the Jewish camp ecosystem at a moment when more capacity, not less, will be essential to reaching more children.

That matters because our work is not simply about maintaining the number of children who attend Jewish camp today. We want that number to grow significantly.

Our broader strategy remains focused on expanding participation, investing in our trusted camp partners, increasing capacity, and creating more opportunities for Jewish children throughout the Carolinas to experience the connection and belonging that immersive Jewish experiences can provide.

There is much more ahead. This summer reinforced an important lesson: The future we want for Jewish children will not happen on its own. Our responsibility is to use every tool we have to build that future together.