That’s me drawing door prize tickets at our recent bi-annual wine tasting fundraiser, with help from Sandy Hensley who is both on our Camp Board, and President of the Boulevard Kiwanis Club in Vancouver.
This post represents some thinking from three years ago and a lot has been accomplished since then. You can keep track of remodeling and upgrades to the camp here at the site. We’re reposting some news and photos from past events as we plan for this year. Don’t miss it — sign up for the newsletter in the pop-up —we’ll also send some fun promotional specials on T-shirts soon.
Overview: Greetings from Wa-Ri-Ki! June marks the beginning of our 2016 camping season and as things get moving here at camp I wanted to take a moment and share some of the exciting things in the works for the Camp over the next 2-3 years. So, from time to time, I plan to include a column in Wa-Ri-Ki Matter’s to keep you posted and share opportunities for you to support us through your involvement.
I have been a Kiwanian for twelve years. In that twelve years, I have served on the Wa-Ri-Ki Board as a Director, Committee Chair, Vice-President, Treasurer, and now, President. It has been an amazing journey, but in truth, no time before has been as exciting to be a part of this organization as now. Some of those years were very lean. Often just keeping the camp operating was all we could do. But now I truly believe that we are poised to make Kiwanis Camp Wa-Ri-Ki the jewel of the SW Washington Kiwanis.
Program Development adds new Events: To achieve this, we have identified the need to develop our own branded outdoor experience programs. Offer opportunities for today’s youth and their families to develop an appreciation of the outdoors why they learn to be good stewards of the earth. Our desire is to enrich their lives by building lasting memories. This is a two phase plan. Phase one consists of introducing outdoor programs through our partnership with our local community organizations. The second phase will be to create, organize, and execute our own branded outdoor programs. The first phase was implemented in 2014 with the wildly successful Nature Explorer Club (NEC) that camp offered in partnership with the Clark County Summer Adventure Program. We will again be offering the NEC program this August. In phase two we want to offer overnight, weekend summer camps.
Current Vision Map – Click to Enlarge. This will be updated after the Board receives more input.
RoadMap and Camp Vision for the Future: How are we going to get all this done? Well, we have a “roadmap” in mind and it includes four, count ’em, four new fundraising events in 2015, a new Camp Alumni Association to re-engage past campers, and work on a comprehensive and planned development effort so we build and develop with the right checkpoints in place.
We need Your Help: End with a call to action and tell them about committees, board positions, and Club Membership (keep tying in the Clubs, so they see we are helping them to help us). We can’t get there alone! We need volunteers to join our committees (Program Development, Fundraising, Marketing, Operations…just to name a few!). We need volunteers at the 2015 NEC and our Golf Tournament in September. We need support at our Wine Tasting’s and donations for our “Moving Heaven and Earth” GoFundMe campaign. In the decades the camp has served the community, it has done so with the support of the Clark County Kiwanis Clubs.
Our Kiwanis members continued support is VITAL to our growth and achieving our goals. Simply put, we need YOU to get involved. Join one of the local Kiwanis clubs or one of our committees. Sign up as a volunteer and participate in the 2015 NEC or the First Annual Golf Tournament. There are so many ways you can be a part of this exciting time for the camp. Just contact me or any member of the board to discuss how best you can help. Till next time.
