Saturday, September 6, 2008

Time, Treasure & Talent

Camp Anokijig is the beneficiary of a great deal of assistance every year. This help comes primarily in three forms- time, treasure and talent. The Racine Founders Rotary Club is a great example of a group that helps in all three regards. This past summer, club members came out to Anokijig and assisted us with a variety of projects.


While everyone knows Anokijig's boathouse is the place to go for paddles, oars and lifejackets, the boathouse also serves a very important safety role for everyone in camp. When threatening weather approaches, an emergency siren located on the top of the boathouse tower sounds to alert all campers and staff that they should report immediately to Western lodge.
Some of the Racine Founders Rotary Club members happen to have a background in electrical contracting and were generous enough to re-wire our boathouse, ensuring Anokijig's emergency siren will sound properly, whenever needed. This was a fairly extensive project, which involved dozens of hours worth of labor over several weekends and we are extremely grateful.


More than a dozen members of the Racine Founders Rotary Club also came up for a work day earlier this year, in which they assisted our staff with the construction of a fenceline for a new horse pasture at camp. While both of these acts of service are great examples of how people can help Camp Anokijig, they also illustrate the difference between time and talent.


It takes a certain level of skill and knowledge to re-wire a building, which is certainly considered a "talent." On the other hand, putting up a fenceline is more a matter of having enough manpower to get the job done relatively quickly, which is a great example of "time."


The Racine Founders Rotary Club takes their commitment to community service seriously and they also gave of their "treasure." As was mentioned previously in this blog, Anokijig expanded it's capacity in the last year. Expanding the capacity at Camp isn't as simple as adding a few beds and and a few more tables and chairs in Western Lodge. We also need to expand our program offerings for campers, so all those extra kids have enough activities to choose from.


The Racine Founders Rotary Club made a three-year commitment to Anokijig, to fund a new program area, called Digital Photography. In this program, our campers learn the basics of photography, including how to identify interesting subjects and compose shots in a variety of settings. The great thing about digital cameras, is that the campers can view the results of their work right away and there is no ongoing expense of film for the cameras, because favorite images can be printed out and the memory cards can then be emptied for the next camper to use.


As one can imagine, the initial costs for this program were substantial, as we needed to purchase digital cameras, printers and photo paper for our campers to print their favorite shots. This new program was made possible by the Racine Founders Rotary Club and was also supported by Enterprise Rent-A-Car and we are extremely grateful for their support.
If you would be interested in donating time, talent or treasure, please contact us at 920-893-0782 or e-mail us at anokijig@excel.net

No comments: