News & Photos
News from around summer camp! See what’s happening at retreats, and get updates on future camp and retreat programs!
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Cooking Comes to Summer Camp!
In order to best use our new Community Farm, we’ll be offering activity periods where kids can learn to cook and help prepare delicious, fresh meals for themselves and others! If there are ingredients that you’d like to see 
grown this summer for cooking, this is the perfect place to post a comment and let us know! Whether it’s delicious fresh salads, or tomato-mozzarella stacks, or loaded baked potatoes… summer campers will have the opportunity to see food go full circle!
We’ll have opportunities for kids to learn to raise chickens, plant vegetables, nurture the plants along, harvest the fruits, learn to prepare meals, and of course, eat what they’ve made! In a day and age where it’s decreasingly common for people to know where their food comes from, we certainly won’t be having that problem this summer. Where else do kids have the opportunity to make an egg salad with eggs that were laid that morning, and lettuce taken fresh from the ground? Come to camp this summer and join the fun!
The Vanderkamp Center is a Christian Summer Camp and Retreat Center just around the corner from Syracuse, Rome, and Utica – and an easy drive from Rochester and Watertown as well! We hope to see you soon!
Farming Comes back to Vanderkamp
With 850 Acres, Running a Summer Camp Isn’t Enough
Last week, we received news of an incredible blessing: the Walmarts of Cicero and East Syracuse responded to a grant proposal we’d written to convert a portion of our summer camp into a community garden that would help supplement our kitchen with organically grown produce, and also help people in this area get healthy food.
Our summer campers will have the opportunity to eat organic food taken directly from the farm each day, and will also be able to give back to their community by helping to distribute this food to food banks near their homes. We’ve had an outpouring of support from many of partners – C&J Farms have agreed to donate seedlings to us once again, North Riding has pledged manure for fertilizer, and Matthew 25 Farm has pledged to give us their leftover seeds.
Donations of these items are absolutely amazing, but what will really make this project go is volunteer support. We can only do so much on our own. We’re calling out to people in our community to help in any way they can – whether it’s helping to build the fence, put in the irrigation system, build a shed to house the tools, or to come up during summer camp and help weed and harvest veggies, we can use your support. Volunteers will get to take a share of this delicious and nutritious food with them, as well as the satisfaction that they are helping both a camp and an area in need.
Read more details at the page dedicated to this project, or contact us if you have any questions or would like to help. This is a big project, but it represents the first step in utilizing these 850 acres to the best of their potential. Won’t you join us?
Alternative Spring Break Retreat – Growing Within, Giving Without
Grow at Summer Camp, Give back on a Retreat
If you grew up going to summer camp, you know it’s a place where the formation of faith and friends happens more rapidly than anywhere else. An interesting thing happens, however, when one transitions from being a summer camper into a summer staff member. All of a sudden, the focus becomes more on providing faith formation for other people. It’s about making sure children are having an easier time making friends. Some people have an awfully tough time making this transition. As a camp director, I’ve worked with a number of young adults who become disillusioned when asked to come behind the curtain and start making the magic for other people. For those who embrace the transition, however, something truly magical happens.
Many counselors, including myself, report that working with campers is actually a more meaningful faith experience than being a camper. Giving can be far more rewarding than getting. And this makes sense, as embracing the spirit of Christ means giving back to those with less than you. I believe everyone is capable of feeling the pure bliss that comes from helping another person in need. Since opportunities like this can be hard to find, we have decided to offer an alternative Spring break mission retreat. This will be an incredible opportunity to feel the spirit moving through you while helping to change the lives of your neighbors in need.
Schoharie County had its infrastructure basically destroyed in floods last year. Few people on a national level are even aware of this disaster. Homes have sat empty and destroyed through these cold winter months. This means that it’s up to us – the proud people of central New York, to raise awareness for those in need and to offer our physical support. At Vanderkamp, we’re working with King of Kings in Liverpool to offer an opportunity to join us in 2 days of mission and 2 days of reflection from April 10th-April 13th. For just $75, you can help make the lives of your neighbors better, and experience personal growth in the process.
Spiritual retreat can mean a lot of things, but in order to really explore the depths of what it means to be at one with the holy spirit, one needs to grow within, and give without. Please go to the alternative spring break mission retreat information page, call 315-675-3651, or contact us for more information. We hope you’ll be able to join us in helping these people who so desperately need us.
Vanderkamp is a retreat facility located near Syracuse, NY – and is a short drive from Utica and Rome as well. Please be in touch with any questions!
Record numbers at the Winter Reunion!
Winter Retreat Fun at Summer Camp
Well, we are absolutely blown away by what just happened at our retreat center this past weekend. So in 2010 we had around 25 people show up for the Winter Reunion. This year? 78 people came out from Syracuse and other areas in central New York to do summer camp in the snow! Well, not so much snow as we would have liked! Enough for some snowball fights on Saturday, and some mud/snow sledding on Saturday, but that was about it! Some sleds didn’t live to tell the tale, but we’ll trade smiles and great memories for sleds any day. We’ll always remember the 2011-2012 winter retreat as the one with autumn weather!
With that slight monkey wrench thrown in, we decided to have other kinds of winter fun! We set up a make-shift Ga Ga court in Fellowship Hall and had a blast playing game after game (after game) of Ga Ga. It’s always so neat to see the sportsmanship that our summer campers (well, they were retreat guests this time around) have. Older campers were so supportive of younger campers, and our group of first timers were integrated into the game with no problem at all!
For campers that wanted to relax and enjoy the calmer side of our retreat center, we had plenty of other activities to choose from as well. There was no shortage of friendship bracelets this weekend! Don’t tell folks from summer camp, but we MAY have even watched a movie or two after it got dark outside. Things are a lot different around here when it gets dark at 4:30! We went through unbelievable amounts of hot chocolate, and even decorated Christmas cookies with Taylor on Saturday.
We got together for a great game of Predator and Prey, Winter-Style!, on Saturday. Groups of Polar Bears, Snow-leopards, and seals gathered resources and tried to stay away from poachers!
What we really focused on was getting back together with old friends from summer camp or one of our retreat programs and remembering why it is Vanderkamp is such a wonderful place. Everyone put aside all the drama and difficulty from the outside world, and took a retreat with us to get to know Christ’s message a little better. While we didn’t have as direct a faith focus as we do during summer camp, we remained in a spirit of worship and thankfulness throughout the entire weekend. During evening worship on Saturday, the campers were asked about things they were grateful for in 2011, and the response was so touching. From being thankful for things as basic as running water to things as magical as that “special something” that exists only at Vanderkamp, the Christian value of gratitude was heartily practiced.
While we had a wonderful time seeing old friends (and making TONS of new ones), what would New Year’s Eve be without a ball drop?? All of the retreaters and our staff got together before midnight to count down the New Year with a fantastic “crystal ball” made by Jon! And it wasn’t even that cold!
As we say goodbye to 2011, we have so much to be thankful for. We are so amazed by the love shown to our camp in this time of transition. We are humbled by the generosity shown by our donors. At the silent auction alone, we raised more than double what we had in the previous year. We were thrilled by the response from summer campers, who returned in record numbers for extra weeks during the camp season – more than 4 times as many kids signed up for an additional week after coming for one week than the previous year. We are so excited at how many people showed up to our Winter Reunion – more than 3 times as many as last year (and some say it was the biggest ever). We booked more new retreat groups than we have in recent memory as well.
With so many blessings having come our way, you can rest assured that we are working around the clock to make sure that our retreat center offerings and summer camp will be even better in 2012 than they were in 2011. From our Vanderkamp family to yours, we hope 2012 is an amazing year for you and yours!
Retreat stories – So much to be Thankful for!
On an unseasonably cold and rainy day last September, a wonderful woman named Sharon came to Vanderkamp for a tour of the retreat facilities. She lives just a few miles away from our retreat center, and wanted to take a look around and see the different buildings around camp.
I asked Sharon if she had ever been up to Vanderkamp before.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Many times. In fact, last year my family rented Frank Lodge for Thanksgiving. We weren’t going to do it this year, but I think we have to.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, times have been tough around here, and we were just going to do Thanksgiving at home. But the other night I was spending time with my family, and we were going to watch Wheel of Fortune. But before Wheel of Fortune, they do the Lottery drawing, you know?”
I nodded.
She continued, “So we were going around, saying what we would do if we won a million dollars. Then it got to my grand daughter, and she said, ‘If I won a million dollars, I would pay so we could go back to Vanderkamp this Thanksgiving.”
“Wow!” I responded, a little dumfounded.
“Yes. So, I talked to my children and we decided we need to make it happen. We just want to figure out which lodge we want to use.”
“That’s great!” I said. “My wife and I are thinking about inviting our families up for Thanksgiving this year, but we weren’t sure if they’d want to drive all the way from New Jersey and Connecticut to central New York.”
“You should! It was just wonderful,” she said. “We had time to just sit and be with each other. No television. No video games. No computers. We hiked through the woods, the kids played ‘Ghost in the Graveyard’ at night, everyone had such a nice time. I couldn’t believe my grandkids could go that long without TV!”
“That does sound great,” I responded. “I think you’ve convinced me. Our families could use some time to just be with each other and take a retreat from our crazy lives.”
And come up for Thanksgiving, we did. Our joint families rented Oscar Lodge and spent our days playing bocce ball, hiking, playing with the chickens, enjoying the fire, playing all sorts of silly games, and just taking time to really talk to one another. My one and a half year old spent the next several weeks signing “where?” and saying his version of the names of the different people in our family. It was easily the best Thanksgiving we ever had, and it gave me a great perspective on what it is like for our retreat guests when they spend a weekend here!
As for Sharon’s family? I caught up with her on Sunday, after their four night stay.
“How was it?” I asked.
“Everyone had the best time. And for next year, my kids are all saving up the money so it won’t be an issue. We can’t wait to see you then!”
And with that, Thanksgiving weekend was over. Around 45 people went back to their day to day lives, but feeling restored after a wonderful four day retreat. Feeling restored and rejuvenated, and most of all, thankful!
Merry Christmas, everyone! We have so much to be thankful for, and hope you do as well! Call 315-675-3651 or Contact Us today!
With love,
James, Taylor, and Oliver Davis
James is the Director of Program and Marketing at the Vanderkamp Retreat Center and Christian Summer Camp.
Summer Camp 2012 Information is Here!!!!!!!
Since summer camp ended last year, you’ve been holding your breath wondering when our offerings for 2012 will be available, haven’t you? We know you too well 
Head over to our summer camp page and check out our offerings for 2012 – REGISTRATION IS LIVE! Just in time for Christmas! If you’re dying to see your summer camp friends before then, nothing would be easier than heading over to the Winter Reunion page and getting registered!
If you’re on this website, you know that nothing compares to the Christian summer camp experience. You may or may not know that Vanderkamp is working to revolutionize how that looks. Sadly, many Christian camps have suffered from decreasing enrollment in the last decade or so. At Vanderkamp, we think that most that comes from a lack of perspective on what exactly Christian camping is. I’d like to give you a brief glimpse into what we are, and what we aren’t.
We aren’t interested in comparing our collection of stuff with any other camp’s collection of stuff. We have a number of amazing program offerings, and the fun to be had here is plentiful…but the point goes so much deeper than that. We believe Christian camps lose touch with who they are when they try to assert themselves as having the most stuff, or the glitziest this, or the most glamorous that. For us, it’s all about relationships, learning to love yourself, and following your own individual faith journey as you become closer with God. It sounds simple, but if you’ve looked into any of our essays on the Vanderkamp Method, you know we take that job extremely seriously and have thought about it a great deal.
A week at a Christian summer camp involves twice as many hours of Christian community as a year of Sunday school.
For those of you who have taken a language in school, I’m sure you know the difference between immersion in a culture that speaks a language and hearing a professor talk about the subjunctive and past perfect tenses. Vanderkamp is that unique Christian immersion experience. Children who come here as campers live in a community that focuses on helping people accept the Peace of Christ in their hearts for an entire week. That’s a whole week retreat from bullying or teasing. A whole week with young-adults showering them with love for exactly who they are. A whole week where what matters is who they are and who they can be, and not what they look like, how their math is, or how athletic they are.
Come here, or help your child come here, and see what a life changing experience looks like. Our dedication to taking children as partners in pursuit of Christ’s message is unparalleled. The love between the campers here and our staff is incredible. The friendships children leave with last a lifetime. Come here, and help us change the world. Sign up today and reserve your spot!
Fall Work Day Fun! Thanks to all!
Well, the fall work day here at our summer camp and retreat center went amazingly! 20 volunteers from Syracuse, Rome, Buffalo, and surrounding suburbs came to help us prepare for winter retreats and shut down the camp from summer camp season.
We were able to rake up mounds of needles that were killing grass in front of the commons, one of the most well traveled areas at camp.
We had a volunteer come to fix our sail boats!
Wonderful electrical work was done in Frank lodge to make a much needed repair to an exit sign! We did some mudding on our sheet-rock in the fireplace room as well!
We were able to split cords of wood for our chilly winter retreat season and for the winter reunion. We got some serious cleaning done in the kitchen, and a delightful meal was prepared for all of our volunteers – even us vegetarians!
We are eternally grateful to all of the volunteers that made this such a successful day! Annie, Steve, Teddy, Alex, and Ben Gross, Chris Fillipi, Kristin Leclair, Erik Smith, Pat Carrigan, Becki and Steve Harris, Don Harter, Steve Rothamel, Carl Basso, Sam, Sarah, and Andy Waters, Willy Peterson, Linda and Bob Graves, Taylor and Oliver Davis, and the Vanderkamp Staff! We hope to see you at our next work day on November 12th!
Cruise on in to the Silent Auction this November!
Vanderkamp Retreat Center and Summer Camp’s Annual Food Festival & Silent Auction
Cruise on in! 
Join the fun!
Enjoy the fellowship of friends, fabulous food & entertainment, while you bid on items of your choice!
This fundraiser supports camperships and program needs for Summer Camp 2012.
The When and the Where:
November 5 6-8:30 p.m.
Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church
5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt, New York
(Please use the north parking lot)
Bid on Items and Baskets:
Hand Carved Angel, Hand made stool, Adirondack Chair, Deltasonic Car Washes, Items for Gift-giving, Think Pink, Framed & signed SU Basketball photos, paintings, Framed pictures, and much more!
Tickets $15/person
Purchase from any Board or Committee member or by calling
Bev Carrigan 476-8800
Becki Harris 696-6566
Linda Graves 451-4944
Vanderkamp 675-3651
Winter Reunion Time at Vanderkamp Center!
Anticipating the Winter blues? We have the cure for what ails you…our Winter Reunion! For those of you dreaming of summer camp – what could be better than doing Winter camp instead? If you want to do it, you let us know. 
Whether you want to cross-country ski, sled down Cherry Hill, drink hot chocolate, reconnect with old friends from the Junior High Retreat or summer camp, it will be a blast! We’ll be sure to have a fire and we’ll definitely be ringing in the new year – Vanderkamp Style! Come and see your best friends and your favorite staff members, but be sure to bring a hat and gloves! Children and Adults are all welcome!
You will also need our registration form, as the software we use for online registration is not equipped for customizable forms. The form is here: Winter Reunion Registration Form. If you don’t feel like downloading it, we can also mail you one after you register online at one of the links above.
If you’re looking for a retreat center and summer camp conveniently located near Syracuse NY, look no further! We are open all year round for retreat groups, and our Christian summer camp is the most creative and loving experience in the area. Give us a call today at 315-675-3651 to learn more!
Wonderful Times at the Middle School Retreat!
17 youth from both Lutheran and Presbyterian Churches in the greater Syracuse area came out to our retreat center and attended our Junior High Retreat this year! 
Luther Memorial, First Presbyterian of Auburn, Onondaga Valley Presbyterian, St. Mark’s in Baldwinsville, and St. Michael’s in Camillus all sent children to enjoy a weekend of faith and fun. We talked about everything from what it means to be a Christian youth in this day in age, to coping with life’s pressures, to what our friends mean to us, to what our perfect church would look like. Participants even wrote letters to their own churches talking about what they would appreciate about their church, and what they would like more of. We took a wonderful hike, and didn’t let the rainy weather deter us from having an amazing faith driven time. We played with the chickens, played Ga Ga, and shot some archery — and even got out into the woods for some late night Ga-Gi-Yot. Don’t know what that is? Guess you’ll have to come some time and find out! We closed with an indoor campfire on the last night, and are already looking forward to the Winter Reunion so we can reunite some time soon! Thanks so much to everyone who attended – you’re already missed! Let’s do it again at summer camp next year! 
