A camp for HIV-positive kids is for sale. Here's why its founder is celebrating

A Minnesota camp for children with HIV and AIDs is going up for sale — but not for the reason you may expect.

One Heartland has served HIV-positive youth for over 30 years in Willow River, Minnesota. Today, the rate of HIV infections among youth in the United States has dropped so significantly that the camp is no longer needed. The nonprofit is now looking for another group to take over — one that will cater more broadly to LGBTQ+ youth and those with other conditions, such as diabetes.

Neil Willenson, now 53, founded One Heartland in 1993 at the age of 22 after being inspired by the story of a young boy with HIV. After several years of switching locations, he purchased the 80-acre plot in 1996 with the help of former Minnesota Twins player and manager Paul Molitor. Other donors over the decades helped to fly children with referrals from the NIH to the camp at no cost to their families

"We wanted to create a safe haven where children affected by the disease, perhaps for the first time in their young lives, could speak openly about it and be in an environment of unconditional love and acceptance," Willenson recently told The Star Tribune.

The use of HIV medicines has helped to lower the rate of perinatal transmission to 1 percent or less in the United States and Europe, according to the National Institute of Health. Globally, the number of annual AIDS-related deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years has declined about 80 percent since its peak in 2002, UNICEF reports.

After losing several campers to HIV-related illnesses in One Heartland's first few years, Willenson said that seeing transmission rates decline so drastically is "something I never could have predicted.” To know that the camp's original purpose isn't necessary anymore “is the greatest story that I ever could have imagined."