Camp Mystic parents who lost their daughters are fighting to protect future Texas campers

The families channeled their unimaginable pain into legislation to toughen safety standards for youth camps across the state.

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.

Kristin Pohl, mother of Abby.Ilana Panich-Linsman for NBC NewsThe 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.