Photography by Jen Rich
A few years ago, veteran camp directors Andy Brown and Dan Grabel fixed up an unused church camp in Rend Lake, Illinois, and opened the gates of Camp Manitowa (314-375-6766, campmanitowa.com). Visiting campers scale the 50-foot climbing wall, ride the 400-foot zip line, swim in the lake, paddle canoes, make s’mores, and play Gaga (a camp dodgeball game) in an octagon pit.
Like many people, as Brown and Grabel watched events unfolding in Ferguson this summer, they wanted to help. They decided the best way to do that would be to open the camp for kids in the Ferguson-Florissant School District. They connected with Toni Burrow, executive director of PAKT Community Resource Center, a North County nonprofit with deep roots in the Ferguson community. “She’s really tied in with a lot of the community leaders up in Ferguson—the superintendent of schools, principals, a lot of the religious leaders,” Grabel says. Within 24 hours, she’d helped them connect to the right decision makers, and they’d also lined up a fleet of donated buses from Durham School Services, as well as a cadre of volunteers, including regular camp counselors and members of the congregations of rabbis Susan Talve and Randy Fleisher. They also raised funds to buy camping necessities like sleeping bags, backpacks, hiking shoes, and toiletries. Camp Ferguson will happen the weekend of October 24 to 26, with students from Griffith, Shane, and Mark Twain schools, among others, traveling to Rend Lake to partake in all the camp activities.
“We’re still hoping to get some local church choirs to come and sing at a campfire,” Grabel says, “and anybody who would want to volunteer who has a background and experience working with kids or working in groups, we’d love for them to volunteer to run some activities too, like drama or music or arts and crafts.” (For time-crunched people who still want to support the effort, monetary donations are welcome.)“
Ultimately, we would love to move toward an annual trip down to camp, if not even more,” Grabel says. “We certainly would not want this to be a one-time event. We really would like this to be a true partnership with the Ferguson community.”
