To Clarify: Family Camp will be operating in 2008. Please see: http://tenmileriver.org/gen/other/summer_ops.shtml#dates
This is a portion of an email just forwarded to me:
Hello Everyone,
This is Sal Pxxx. I’m writing to say that after 25 consecutive summers serving Scouting families in Family Camp at Ten Mile River, my family has been informed by the Ten Mile River Director, Bob Madsen, that our services will no longer be needed.
We leave without bitterness or resentment toward anyone. Everything changes, except for the fact that everything changes. Over the years, Barbara and I tried to serve the Family Campers as best we could. We viewed our work there as a ministry. We tried to minister to every family that stayed with us and kept in touch during the year.
Family Camp saw weddings, births, baptisms, parties, galas, and dinners, all of which made the merry Greenwood resound with laughter. We saw children arrive as infants in arms, witnessed these same children grow, marry, and bring their own families to camp. We weathered storms, intense heat, waterless weekends, broken plumbing, run down facilities. We were there for several resurrections of the place too. Kitchens were restored twice during our tenure, and bathrooms were added. Roofs were redone many times.
But it wasn’t the facilities that made the place, nor was it the program. It was the people. Where else could folks from every conceivable socioeconomic strata, representing every race and religion, come together in absolute harmony and bliss, and get along so well that everyone wept the night before they had to leave? Lasting friendships, marriages, and babies were made in Family Camp, including my own two sons, both now Scouts on their way to Eagle.
We leave sadly, but proudly, of what we accomplished over 25 summers. We take with us all our memories of you, in our scrap books, in our minds, and most importantly, in our hearts. We bid you all good-bye and God Bless. May Family Camp ever be an example of true brotherhood and love to all who tread the trails of Ten Mile River.
While I understand the financial necessities, and the fact that in some cases those staying at Family Camp where no longer affiliated with Scouting, it is sad to see it close.
While my time at Family Camp predates Sal’s, I was on staff (ran the Waterfront) there my first two years on Camp Staff back in 1974 and 1975. A lot of good memories from my times there too.
I first met Sal when he came into Keowa to help “bail” us out with several others. Then I met Barbra as well. WHile I have not been back to Family Camp in years, I still tried to keep up with the happenings via various web sites.
I too met many great people at family camp on my days off, extended week after camp, and the few times I was able to come up on weekends just to say hi.
I know Sal and Barbra loved the place and thought of it as a 2nd home. That is how it must have survived this long. This is sad. I hope they do not “sell it off”