Setting Up Camp When the Help Fell Through
Wildfire smoke cancelled the school group that sets up camp every June. Volunteers stepped in over a few days so the season opened on schedule.
- Date
- June 5, 2023
Every summer, roughly thirty students from a local school come to camp just before the season opens and do the work of getting it ready. In 2023 they had to cancel.
The air that June was thick with smoke blowing down from the Canadian wildfires. Health officials were advising people to limit time outdoors, and the school judged it was not safe to bring students out. That was the right call — but camp was still on schedule, and the work still had to happen.
Over a few days in early June, Friends of Camp Mack members and other volunteers did the work the students could not.
And then check-in day
The second session of Cub Camp sold out. More than 300 Cub Scouts, parents and leaders were registered — enough that registration, moving gear to campsites and simply handling the number of people would have overwhelmed the summer camp staff on its own.
Volunteers turned out again for that day. In the camp director’s words afterward: “I have no idea how we would have gotten through that first day without your help.”