Why Sunland Keeps Showing Up for Burned Children Year After Year
The 10th Annual Burned Children Recovery Foundation fundraiser returns June 19-20 with music, golf, auctions, and a mission born from one survivor’s determination to help others.
On February 18, 1967, a 12-year-old Snohomish County boy with dreams of playing professional baseball went to spend the night with a friend, never knowing that one moment around a campfire would change the direction of his life forever. Gasoline was poured onto the fire, the can exploded, and Michael Mathis was burned over 64 percent of his body. Nearly six decades later, that boy’s story is helping bring hundreds of people together in Sunland Estates, where volunteers have raised more than $400,000 to help burned children and their families.
TL;DR
Sunland Estates will host the 10th Annual Burned Children Recovery Foundation fundraiser June 19 and 20.
The event includes live music, a golf tournament, silent and live auctions, raffles, and a beer garden.
The Burned Children Recovery Foundation was founded in 1989 by burn survivor Michael Mathis.
Mathis suffered burns over 64 percent of his body as a child and later dedicated his life to helping other burn survivors.
The foundation reports helping more than 139,700 children and family members since its founding.
Programs include Camp Phoenix, Phoenix House, family assistance, counseling, transportation help, school support, survivor mentoring, and recovery resources.
Organizers Stan Chambers, Dan Lambert, and local volunteers have helped make the Sunland fundraiser a decade-long community tradition.
Organizers estimate the event has generated more than $400,000 for the Burned Children Recovery Foundation over its lifetime, including more than $70,000 raised last year alone.
The Boy Behind the Mission
Before there was a foundation, there was a boy who loved baseball.
Michael Mathis had recently received an all-star award as a catcher in Snohomish County Little League and carried the kind of dream many young athletes understand. He wanted to play professionally one day. He had a future in front of him, a sport he loved, and a childhood that, until that February night, looked ordinary in the best possible way.
That changed just after 11 p.m. when the gasoline can exploded near the campfire.
Mathis survived, but the accident left him with burns across 64 percent of his body. What followed was not a quick recovery or a single hospital stay. It was years of surgeries, healing, and learning how to live in a world that often did not know how to respond to someone with visible scars.
In telling his story, Mathis has said the hardest part of burn recovery was not only the physical pain. It was learning how to handle the staring, name-calling, and inappropriate reactions from others.
Over time, he came to understand something that would later shape the foundation’s entire mission. He learned to separate his scars from the person he was inside.
“After years of surgeries and negative reactions to my scars, I learned that I had been given a unique gift,” Mathis wrote. “I now have the opportunity to share my wisdom with the children that are burned in America every year.”
That realization became more than a personal lesson. It became a mission.
Building a Foundation for Other Children
In December 1989, Michael Mathis founded the Burned Children Recovery Foundation.
The organization was created to help children and families facing the long road that follows serious burn injuries. Hospitals and medical teams can treat wounds, perform surgeries, and help save lives, but recovery often continues long after a child leaves medical care.
Families may face transportation needs, lodging costs, counseling needs, medical-related expenses, school disruptions, and the emotional weight of helping a child adjust to life after a traumatic injury. Children may be learning how to return to school, answer difficult questions from classmates, regain confidence, and believe they are still whole even when their appearance has changed.
The foundation was built for that space between medical survival and life after the injury. For many families, that is where the hardest part of recovery begins.
Since its founding, the Burned Children Recovery Foundation reports helping more than 139,700 children and family members after fire and burns changed their lives. Its work is rooted in the belief that burn survivors need more than treatment. They need support, connection, confidence, and people who understand what recovery really requires.
Mathis has credited volunteers and supporters for helping carry that mission forward.
“I could not have done this alone,” he wrote. “This is a legacy for all who have loved our children.”
While the organization serves families nationwide, Chambers said the foundation’s impact has reached communities close to home as well. According to organizers, children and families from Quincy, Wenatchee, Yakima, Spokane, the Tri-Cities and other Washington communities have received assistance through foundation programs over the years.
More Than Medical Recovery
The foundation’s work reaches into the parts of recovery that are often hardest for families to manage alone.
One of its best-known programs is Camp Phoenix, a week-long national recovery camp for burned children. The camp gives children an opportunity to spend time with other burn survivors and adult mentors who understand their experiences firsthand. For children who may feel isolated or different at school, in public, or even among friends, that kind of peer connection can be life-changing.
Camp Phoenix is not simply about outdoor activities or summer fun. It is about helping children rebuild confidence, form friendships, face fear, and discover that they are not alone.
The foundation also operates Phoenix House, a recovery facility designed to support children who are struggling with trauma, isolation, or difficulty adjusting during recovery. For some children, physical healing may happen before emotional healing. Phoenix House exists to help children through those harder stages of recovery.
The foundation’s broader services include family assistance, counseling, transportation help, lodging support, compression garments, prescription assistance, school-related support, clothing, shoes, extracurricular activity assistance, vocational training, and survivor resources.
Those details matter because they help explain what a fundraiser like Sunland’s can actually support. A donation may help a family travel to care. It may help a child attend camp. It may help with school needs, recovery supplies, or counseling. It may help a child take part in sports, dance, band, or another activity that restores a sense of normal life.
For burn survivors, healing is not just about what happens to the skin. It is also about what happens to the spirit.
Why Sunland Keeps Showing Up
The fundraiser’s roots stretch back further than many people realize.
According to organizer Stan Chambers, the event began as a fundraising poker run organized by the motorcycle club Zacky’s Backroads. Community members Tom Finken and Jim May envisioned something larger and launched what became known as the Sagecreek Music Festival, using live music and community events to raise awareness and funds for burned children.
Chambers said much of the event’s success can be traced back to the vision Finken and May shared from the beginning. They believed a community event could do more than raise money. It could raise awareness, build connections, and help people better understand the challenges burned children and their families face. Although Finken has since passed away and May has retired from the fundraiser, their original vision continues through the work of volunteers, sponsors, and organizers who return each year.
They later asked Chambers to help promote the effort, making him the event’s marketing director. More than a decade later, he is still involved.
After Finken’s passing and May’s retirement, longtime friend Dan Lambert stepped in to help continue the fundraiser. Chambers credits Lambert’s passion, generosity, and organizational skills with helping the event grow into one of Sunland Estates’ signature community traditions.
“This combined with Sunland Estates and many volunteers donating time, love and money has steadily increased awareness and helped raise over $70,000 last year alone,” Chambers said.
Over the life of the fundraiser, organizers estimate the event has generated more than $400,000 in gross revenue for the Burned Children Recovery Foundation.
For Chambers, however, the event has always been about more than fundraising totals.
The foundation has helped burn survivors throughout the country, including children and families in Quincy, Wenatchee, Yakima, Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and other communities across Washington.
Last year’s fundraiser remains one of Chambers’ favorite memories.
“Seeing hundreds of people in my community all coming together for such a great cause,” he said. “The volunteers were amazing and the community was so generous and really involved with helping the charity.”
He believes the foundation’s mission resonates because burn injuries affect far more than a child’s physical recovery.
“Over 280,000 kids are burned each year,” Chambers said. “This not only affects them physically but mentally as well. We believe in giving back, especially to our kids who get bullied, hide in their rooms and are afraid to reach their true potential.”
For Chambers, raising money remains important, but awareness may be even more valuable.
Success for this year’s event looks much like success did last year: a strong turnout, an engaged community, and more people learning how to support burn survivors and their families.
“We want to educate parents and kids on how to lift up the victims instead of ignoring them,” Chambers said. “Not being afraid of them because they look different. Including them in friendship and activities instead of bullying them. Helping the parents to be healthy and giving them the support and tools to navigate through difficult times.”
That mission is what continues bringing volunteers, sponsors, musicians, golfers, and community members back year after year.
The 2026 Event Details
This year’s fundraiser begins Friday, June 19, at Sunland Estates Park.
Music starts at 7 p.m. with 1980s dance and rock hits featuring DJ Roman Havens, a laser light show, and a House and EDM dance party.
On Saturday, June 20, the event continues with the 10th Annual Sunland Golf Scramble at Colockum Ridge Golf Course. Check-in begins at 8 a.m. with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. Tournament registration includes golf, carts, lunch, and drink tickets. Organizers will also host prizes, raffles, and trophies as part of the tournament.
Saturday evening activities return to Sunland Estates Park with a silent auction from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and a live auction from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The evening will also include live music from Hell on Heels, a Northwest country and rock band. Organizers will host a 50/50 raffle and a beer garden sponsored by Iron Horse Brewing.
In addition to attending the event, community members and businesses may support the fundraiser through donations, auction items, and banner sponsorships. Organizers are offering space on banners at the golf tournament and music festival for a $500 donation.
Checks for donations should be made out to BCRFC.
What This Means to You
Community fundraisers often succeed because they give people a way to be part of something bigger than themselves.
For residents in Sunland Estates, Quincy, George, Crescent Bar, Winchester, and throughout the 98848, this fundraiser is an opportunity to support children and families facing a kind of recovery most people will never fully understand.
It is also a reminder that local events can have an impact far beyond the place where they are held. A round of golf in Sunland, a bid on an auction item, a raffle ticket, a sponsorship banner, or a night of live music can help support a child learning how to face the world after a traumatic injury.
For families served by the Burned Children Recovery Foundation, that support may come at a moment when they need more than medical care. They may need help with travel, lodging, counseling, school, recovery supplies, or simply the reassurance that they are not alone.
That is why this event matters.
A Legacy Worth Continuing
Nearly sixty years after Michael Mathis survived burns over 64 percent of his body, the foundation he created continues helping children and families facing challenges he understands personally. For the 10th year, volunteers in Sunland Estates are carrying that mission forward.
Organizers hope the event raises money, but they also hope it changes perspectives. Every child recovering from a burn injury deserves the chance to be seen for who they are rather than the scars they carry. That belief helped inspire a foundation in 1989, and it continues bringing people together in the 98848 today.
In the end, the fundraiser is not simply about music, golf, auctions, or raffles. It is about helping children find confidence, helping families find support, and helping ensure that no child has to navigate recovery alone.
