AUSTIN, Texas — One of the seven letters 8-year-old Virginia wrote her parents, Lacy and Lars Hollis, while she was at Camp Mystic this summer had a sticker pasted to the back. “Be happy, Love, Virginia," it read.
In the letter, the young girl said: “Mommy, you were right. This is the best. I’m having so much fun,” Lacy Hollis recalled. Virginia had wished her mom a happy July 4th.
Eight-year-old Abby, too, had written her mother and father, Kristin and Matthew Pohl, as well as her grandparents and both sets of cousins. “On her note to me, her last one, she had written stars all over the envelope and all over the note, and it just said: 'Dear Mom, I’m having so much fun. I’m making so many new friends. I love you. See you in Austin,'” Kristin Pohl said in a “TODAY” show interview with Jenna Bush Hager.
The letters are now precious treasures for the Camp Mystic parents, the last of the voices and thoughts of their daughters.
The 12 heartbroken parents said Wednesday that those voices have guided them as they have spent the past month channeling their grief into advocacy for state legislation that would toughen safety for youth camps across Texas, the kind of safety they said did not exist for their daughters.
The bills they advocated for — which passed the Legislature on Wednesday night and are expected to be signed by Gov. Greg Abbott — would, among other things, prohibit licensing of camps with cabins in flood plains, require camps to submit detailed annual emergency preparedness plans and implement safety training for staffers and campers.
Twenty-seven girls and counselors died July 4 when the Guadalupe River overflowed by several feet in a matter of hours, sweeping through wooded summer camps, homes and businesses. One of the girls, Cile Steward, who was 8, still has not been found.
"When I dropped her off, I told her, 'It's the safest place on Earth,'" Lacy Hollis said of leaving her daughter at Camp Mystic. "I don't want another parent's happiest day at the happiest place on Earth to then become something you can't even hardly think about with having your heart ripped open."
Some parents have been left with guilt in the wake of the tragedy.
"All of us ask how did we not see this coming or check more closely," said Ryan DeWitt, Molly DeWitt's father. "When you drop your kid at camp, that should be a given."
DeWitt said the new requirements in the legislation should be "the bare minimum."
Hours after they sat down with NBC News, taking turns giving life to their daughters through memories, the parents went to the Texas Capitol to witness final votes in the state House and Senate to pass The Heaven's 27 Camp Safety Act they championed.
The parents wore multiple colorful silicone bracelets with the names of one another's daughters on them. They also wore pink pins with a cloud under a halo with the words "Heaven's 27," referring to the lives lost at the camp.
'100% preventable'
Blake Bonner, father of 9-year-old Lila Bonner, helped found the Heaven's 27 Foundation to unite parents behind bolstering youth camp safety in the state.
The parents, who are dealing with the torment of their grief — shock, denial, guilt — recognize "that this is a lot larger than Camp Mystic," Bonner said. In the first few weeks after July 4, the only explanations were that "this was an act of God," "part of camping" or "just a freak accident," he said.
Bonner said that he could not believe any of that and that as he looked into the facts and circumstances, "it became very, very clear that this wasn't an accident. This was complacency, and it was 100% preventable."
"I just couldn't bear the thought that their legacy would bring this much pain," he said. "So we poured our pain into this campaign, and it's been amazing to see their legacy now established as not only heroes, but heroes that have driven this change and legislation that will save lives."
The proposed tougher regulations for youth camps got heavy support and advanced in two otherwise deeply partisan special legislative sessions, during which Democrats fled the state to prevent a vote on highly divisive redistricting legislation. A second special session provided time to move the bills forward. The families also had some lobbyists and other people savvy about navigating the halls of the Capitol on their side.
Ryan DeWitt, father of 9-year-old Molly, told Bush Hager the timing allows the safety regulations to take effect before next summer. He said it was a no-brainer for the parents to organize behind that.
John Stevens, father of 8-year-old Mary, said, "We all as parents want to be able to send our kids back to camp, for this industry, which is very important to the state of Texas, to continue ... but we want it to happen safely."
"We would have been doing a massive disservice to our daughters for not running with this and seeing this through," Stevens said.
The parents said trying to make the camps safer for all children has helped them move forward in their grief.
But Will and Cici Steward said they are living in a sort of suspended animation as they continue to wait for their daughter's body to be found.
"We are forced to live and wait in agony, hoping and praying and looking for signs from the universe that she's OK and that she will be found," Cici Steward said. "For that to be good news and what we're hoping for, that our child's body be returned to us ... is a reality and a nightmare ... I wouldn't wish upon anybody."
On Thursday, the Eastland family, which owns and operates Camp Mystic, supported the recently passed legislation in a statement, praising the families' advocacy and adding that "regardless of the provisions of Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1, our planning and procedures will reflect the catastrophic 1,000-year weather event that occurred on July 4, including never having campers return to cabins that had floodwaters inside them, despite the fact that all cabin floors are already outside of the 100-year flood plain."
The camp's owner and director, Richard "Dick" Eastland, died as he was trying to rescue some of the campers from the flash floods.
For now, family members are holding on to the moments their daughters relayed to them from the river camp.
The campers “were all having the best time," said Carrie Hanna, mother of Hadley. "In our photos, in our letters, you could just see and hear the joy they were having. And it makes me happy that they had that. I would have loved for them to have had longer."
