Bikes from Camp: a fitting end
For eleven summers, we partnered with the Plett family to support them in offering a truly unique day camp at their property out near Bird’s Hill Park. It began with a group of dozen or so kids, mostly from our own church families, but over the years it grew in both size and scope. Thanks to Corinne’s work at a downtown school specializing in work with newcomer families, many of the day campers came to us from those families, allowing us to offer an opportunity for those kids to get out of the city for five days of adventure. For those days they learned, they laughed, they played, and they challenged themselves to set down their guard and try new things. It was a glorious thing to watch… and at the bottom of this post you can view a video from the 2108 edition of the camp.
Over the years many people from saint ben’s made campership contributions to help make this all happen. People also donated bicycles or made contributions toward the purchase of bikes, which came to play a central role in the day camp programming.
And then came the spring of 2019, when the Pletts made the decision to move from their property, which brought the day camp to an end. Early this summer Corrine approached us with a question: what to do with those bikes? They’d moved them to their new home, but that property really didn’t have the capacity for hosting a camp.
Well, what better way to see them put to continuing use than to give them to those kids from the newcomer families with whom solid connections had been built? And so with that, they went to work.
Just a few weeks later, Corrine came back with the following report:
We officially have no camp bikes left! - there were newcomer families/teens who needed them, and there were so many HAPPY faces when they found out the bikes are theirs to keep! We gave 10 bikes to one family! - and yes, they do all live in one house. We bought them a long cable lock so they can store them in their porch and lock them all together - hopefully they won't get stolen. They were so delighted. And we had helmets from camp too that we gave them. Our family had a tiny bike with training wheels and a tricycle that we added in for the little ones in the household.
Two other girls - nine and eleven - have never learned to ride a bike. So they are very excited to have bikes and there is someone they are connected with who will teach them to ride.
And then one more family had three kids in need of bikes. They had been walking everywhere, so this makes a HUGE difference for them in terms of being able to get to day programs this summer.
So the camp bikes all have homes in the newcomer community and their new owners are so very very happy!
Frankly, we couldn’t imagine a better or more fitting way to bring our day camp program to an end. Huge thanks to the Plett family, for all they have done over the years.
A video slideshow from the very last saint ben’s day camp