2023 Grant Recipients
$2,500 Grant Recipients
Mimanagish - Upgrade the 1937 Chapel that has been a hub for transformative experiences.
Shannondale—Create an internet café at the Timber Lodge. Our vision for the internet café is to provide a safe, stable, private room for people to access educational, clinical, and professional services via platforms like Zoom. Grant will help provide a monitor, camera, microphone, privacy screen, speakers, and a simple laptop.
Tower Hill—Re-purpose 16 ft climbing wall into a Traverse Wall. The Traverse Wall will be an added element in our Playfield for children and youth to use, and one that allows for independent play.
$1,000 Grant Recipients
Moval— Provide an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED)
Camp Fowler— Offer a 5 day backpacking and canoeing trip for up to 8 counselors in training who want to participate. This will allow us to: 1. show them a style of camping that very few Cits have ever taken part in. 2. help them learn backcountry skills which increase their problem solving and decision-making ability. 3. give them an opportunity to reflect, with adult guidance, on their summer experience at Fowler and hopefully begin to integrate that into other areas of their lives.
Horton Center— Provide training for leaders and make necessary changes to camp as they prepare for their first “Pride on the Mountain” Camp.
One Camp’s Story
How La Foret used their Deering Grant
In the Midst of Covid Uncertainty, the Camp Nurse Was an Angel!
Over the months leading up to Summer of 2021, there was a lot of uncertainty from La Foret staff, parents, kids. Could we safely bring youngsters and teens together for their most important and valued vacation experience - summer camp? There are things lay people can do to be responsible, like following guidance from respected sources like ACA and CDC, following updates closely to make sure all the right calls are made, and keeping parents informed. THEN, there is a whole other level of information, statistics, instructions and predictions that people who work in the camp industry can't access so easily, and really cannot interpret or weigh with any certainty. That is where Nurse MaryEllen came in.
Our long-time camp nurse does so very much, and asks so very little of us. This beloved staple and hero of La Foret's camp life did hours upon hours of work before the Summer of 2021, beyond what she normally does in prep, simply to keep her finger on the pulse of COVID-19. She went above and beyond to tailor our protocols to the highest standard of safety. In all honesty, there is no way our small program could ever hope to compensate her at the level she is truly worth, but with a Deering Grant from OMA, we were able to get a fair deal closer. We are very grateful for the gift of showing MaryEllen that we truly could not hold camps without her; not when she first began decades ago, and especially not during a pandemic. Thanks to MaryEllen and the Deering Grant, we were able to provide a safe and successful camp when kids needed it most.