Kim Kann is helping to make sure her late husband Jeff Landis' legacy lives on.

While working as the Lampeter-Strasburg (L-S) School District transportation director, Landis spent more than two decades planning the annual middle school trip to Cape Henlopen State Park in southern Delaware.

"Jeff did a lot of work with student trips," Kann said. "That was his passion, planning experiences for kids."

Landis was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2022. He made the trip to Cape Henlopen in June before passing away that December. Kann retired from teaching in 2022 but still helps with the annual outing to Delaware.

"It is a fantastic program for kids," said Kann. "It was his passion, and it was really important to me that it continues in the spirit in which he supported it all those years. We were very lucky to find a team of really good chaperones to continue it."

Kann noted that coordinator Joe Mencarini has done a tremendous job after taking over for Landis. The other adult chaperones on this year's trip were Jordan Dilling, who attended the camp as a middle-schooler and high school helper; health teacher Michelle Diffendarfer; physical education teacher Amy Beard; and district community relations coordinator Anne Harnish.

Forty L-S students, including middle-schoolers and high school helpers, made this year's trip on June 23 to 26. Middle school students who are interested sign up for the camp, and there is a fee to attend.

"It is a combination of fellowship and education," Kann said.

Students visited Fort Miles, which is a World War II bunker museum, and Seaside Nature Center; went fishing and on a sand dunes exploration; and took a night hike, sunset dolphin cruise, and sunrise polar bear swim.

"For a lot of kids, it's their first time away from home," Kann said. "It is their first opportunity to kind of negotiate life on their own. They form friendships. They form relationships with the chaperones, and with the high school helpers. The high school helper program is a neat program. It's always former campers who have shown some leadership inclination, and they are able to come along and help keep things running smoothly, between guiding kids in their activities to food preparation, to clean up, basically whatever needs to be done. We've had a lot of kids over the years who (attend the camp) three years in middle school and four years of high school, and a number of them come back as adults."

Kann added that the Cape Henlopen trips offers a chance for students to develop relationships with teachers from the building outside of the school setting. "For a lot of them, this is their first time at the beach," she stated. "It's a combination of fun camp activities and educational stuff. ... My main thing is it's just the legacy of my ex-husband. It was his true passion to create educational and adventure experiences for kids."

Kann and Landis took kids out to Teton Science Schools in Wyoming and to Pigeon Key in the Florida Keys to a marine science camp. "The Cape Henlopen trip was his pinnacle," Kann said. "He really liked providing that experience for as many kids as possible."

A memorable meeting occurred during this year's trip. Kann was back at camp while many of the students had already headed to the beach. "Before I came over, Joe reached out to me and said, 'There's somebody down at the pavilion that wants to talk to you.'"

When Kann arrived at the pavilion, she saw former L-S student Sydney Brinkman, who attended the Cape Henlopen camp while in middle school. In ninth grade, Brinkman wanted to be a high school helper along with two friends. Ainsley Motta and Cyan Rodriguez. "Jeff always had way more kids that wanted to do it than there were spots," Kann recalled. "So they came to me and asked me, 'How can we be a high school helper?' I said, "You're going to have to get creative, figure something out.' And they produced a very professional video that was like an infomercial for why they should be high school helpers, and they did for the remainder of their years in high school."

Brinkman, an environmental studies major, was working at Cape Henlopen for the summer. "It was a really beautiful, full-circle moment," said Kann. "Part of that moment was bittersweet because Ainsley passed away a number of years ago from a brain aneurysm. And her little brother, Liam, was on the trip. So it was a reunion between Liam, and Sydney and myself, which was really sweet."

Through the Lancaster County Community Foundation, Kim established a program called Jeff's Kids, which benefits the L-S Ski and Snowboard Club and the Cape Henlopen trip, two of Jeff's passions. Go to https://www.lancfound.org/fund/jeffs-kids-fund/ for more information.