Nearly 300 people gathered at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables on Sunday for a day built around a simple but difficult question: what comes after cancer treatment ends? The event, called Thrive Fest, brought together pediatric cancer survivors and their families for workshops and a keynote address aimed at helping them rebuild life after the hardest part is technically over.
The gathering marked the third annual Thrive Fest staged by Camp UOTS, as reported by WSVN. The festival included empowerment and wellness workshops alongside a keynote from cancer survivor Elissa Kalver, and organizers designed it specifically around the idea that finishing cancer treatment can bring its own new set of challenges for children and their families, not just an end to old ones.
From Surviving to Thriving
The station's report notes that Thrive Fest's goal was to help young cancer survivors move beyond simply surviving their illness and toward actually thriving afterward. That framing matters because survivorship itself can carry a long tail of difficulty. According to the American Association for Cancer Research, pediatric cancer survivors can face physical, neurocognitive, psychosocial and financial problems that surface months or even years after diagnosis or treatment, a reality documented by the American Association for Cancer Research.
The same organization notes that families and caregivers of children with cancer can carry emotional, financial and logistical burdens that are profound and long-lasting. That context helps explain why an event centered on community and workshops, rather than medical treatment itself, can serve a real need for families who have already been through years of appointments and uncertainty.
A Keynote Rooted in Personal Experience
Sunday's keynote speaker, Elissa Kalver, brought her own history with cancer to the stage. Kalver was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer at age 34, just before her daughter's first birthday, according to her own website. At Thrive Fest, per the station's account, she told attendees that there are things people cannot control and many things they can, and she pointed to the value of simply being present with others who understand.
“It's community, it's days like today, coming together and being around people who honor,” Kalver said, according to the same account. Her remarks tied directly into the day's broader purpose: creating a space where survivors and their supporters could gather around shared experience rather than isolation.
A Nonprofit Built on Free Programs Since 1991
Camp UOTS describes itself as a nonprofit that provides pediatric cancer patients, survivors and their supporters with free, helpful opportunities through what it calls complimentary and medically sound programs, per Camp UOTS. The organization traces its roots back to 1991, when Eve Ruthfield, then president of U.O.T.S.-Miami #43, founded it as a free sleep-away camp where children facing cancer could make memories, according to the nonprofit's own account.
That founding mission, built around giving kids facing cancer a space to simply be kids, appears to carry through into the organization's current programming for survivors navigating life after treatment. Sunday's event in Coral Gables extended that same spirit to a broader festival format rather than a single camp session.
Part of a Wider Landscape of Survivor Support
Thrive Fest in Coral Gables is not the only event of its kind aimed at young cancer survivors. A separate Thrive Fest, subtitled Beyond the Horizon and promoted by Elephants and Tea, was held Saturday, October 4, 2025, at The White Orchid in Miami for childhood cancer survivors ages 12 and up, featuring wellness activities including yoga, meditation and creative workshops. The existence of similarly themed gatherings suggests a broader pattern of organizations building dedicated spaces for survivors to process what comes after treatment, even as each event operates independently.
For Camp UOTS, Sunday's turnout of nearly 300 people at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden represented the latest chapter of a festival now in its third year, built around workshops, a keynote, and the kind of community Kalver described from the stage.
