Out of a family tragedy and profound loss, author A.S. King (Pick the Lock) and her son Jaxon King, 17, are building Gracie’s House, a nonprofit that creates safe spaces for queer youth and diverse families. Gracie’s House will offer sleepaway camps for LGBTQ young people in grades 4–12 and their families; adult camps for queer people seeking positive camping experiences; and grants for community programming in support of folks with LGBTQ identities.
On September 20, the Kings announced their first weeklong sleepaway camp, to be held in Berks County, Pa., in summer 2025. They also have a strategic plan to grow the organization through 2029, and are open to sponsors, donors, and potential artists-in-residence.
By organizing camps that bring diverse individuals together, the Kings plan to foster friendships and create a respite from the social and political pressures that undermine children and teens’ mental health. In her own southeastern Pennsylvania county, “more than five” young trans people ended their lives in the past year, King said. “I’m kind of tired of how the news talks about trans and non-binary kids’ suicidality as if it’s a side effect of their identity. It’s not. It’s a side effect of our society,” including anti-trans legislation and crackdowns on the freedom of expression.
‘A More Compassionate Conversation’
Gracie’s House honors the life of A.S. King’s daughter and Jaxon’s sister Gracie King, who died in 2018 at age 16. “Here at Gracie’s House, we believe in crushing the stigma around mental illness and suicide,” King recently wrote on the nonprofit’s Instagram account, where she also links to groups including the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ young people.
“I’m very open about how Gracie died,” King told PW. “My private life [as a writer] was always kind of stashed to the side, but now it’s a little more public” because of Gracie’s death and the urgency of helping families cope with depression and suicide risk. She now serves as a suicide-loss-survivor peer group facilitator with Mental Health America, with a goal of approaching “suicide prevention in a more effective way through education, versus pretending it doesn’t happen, and then gossiping,” she said. “We’ve been taught to judge, in most cases,” when we could have “a more compassionate conversation.”
When she and Jaxon talked about creating a nonprofit in Gracie’s memory, though, “we knew we didn’t want it to have to do with the way Gracie died,” King said. “Gracie is more defined by how she lived. And Gracie lived awesomely. She was an artist and a musician and a lover,” a singer and songwriter who identified as pansexual. “I used to give her Post-it notes in her stocking at Christmas time, and she used to write lovely things on them. On her walk home from school, she would put stickers on cars, shop windows, on random lockers that just said, ‘You are beautiful,’ and things like that.”
For an organization that mirrored Gracie’s kindness, King and Jaxon looked at ways to fund grants “making safe spaces for rural queer youth,” along the lines of their local Pride organization, Lititz Chooses Love, which runs a food pantry, a gender-affirming clothing closet, and other grassroots programming. They also talked about establishing safe, welcoming pop-up art events, artists-in-residence and poetry slams, or even a residential space for unhoused queer youth—all long-term goals for Gracie’s House.
Then they recalled the positive experiences Gracie had at two-week summer camps. “She would come back a changed person,” King said, yet “there are so few camps specifically for non-binary and trans kids.” Traditional sleepaway camps generally fail to have inclusive cabins and facilities for kids of all genders, and fellow campers or parents may be homophobic or transphobic.
The Kings decided to develop camps where LGBTQ people of all ages “can hike, tent-camp on the peak, stay in camp, do ziplines, and climb,” King said. “The umbrella name for all of our camps is FOUND Camp,” referring to “found families” made up of close friends who are not blood relations. “We want to make art, hang out in nature, and help young people,” King said.
She and Jaxon worked with Camp Conrad Weiser, where Gracie had been a camper, to plan Gracie’s House. “We went up to camp this summer for an alumni weekend,” King said, and participated in a cedar chip ceremony around a campfire. “You say who you’re throwing a cedar chip in for. When I threw a cedar chip in for Gracie, three of the counselors stood up and said, ‘We were in a cabin with Gracie.’ It’s lovely to see how her impact on people continues.”
King views the camps, and other community programming and grants for Gracie’s House, as material action that Gracie herself would have initiated. “Because Gracie can’t use her hands anymore, these hands are now Gracie's hands,” King said, holding her hands out. “We can go forward in life and do really good things, which is what she wanted to do. She was just fighting a hard battle that she lost. It’s just how it goes.”
By advocating for LGBTQ young people, particularly those in rural regions who feel isolated and under threat, Gracie’s House upholds its namesake’s compassionate values, King said. “I’m asking people to be Gracie’s hands along with me.”
