“Now that summer camp is over, how do you guys stay busy the rest of the year?” It’s a common question, one we get a lot here at Lakeview Ministries.
But camp stays busy the entire year, not just in the summer. We host groups and hold retreats every single month of the year, and have preparations, projects, and events for every month of the season.
Check out this calendar timeline if you’re curious what all happens at camp during the school year!
Early Fall (August, September, October): “Retreat Season”
After summer, we have one of our busiest times of the whole year during our fall retreat season. Did you know that more people come and stay at camp in these three months as do the entire summer? And unlike the summer, we don’t have 50 college age summer staff to help take care of all these people (although we’re blessed to have dozens of our summer staff come back to help over the course of the season.)
In between Family Weekends, Women’s Retreat, confirmation retreats, youth retreats, family reunions, and Outdoor Education with school groups, our staff stays busy with programming, cleaning, and just generally getting camp ready for the next group or event.
We consider it an honor to be able to help organize camp activities, prepare meals, and lead campfire devotions as we serve so many groups throughout the fall! “It is awesome to be a resource to all these groups,” said Ellie “Frisbee” Lutz, Senior Program Director. “We’re thrilled to offer space for people to bring their students, youth, and families.”
Late Fall/Early Winter (November, December, January ): “Camp Prep and Projects”
We head into late fall and early winter with a focus on getting everything ready for summer camp promotions and staff recruiting.
We take this time to set our program schedule for the year, update our website, launch summer staff applications, start staff interviews, and basically just get ourselves in position for a successful camp year! Some of us also turn our attention to projects we haven’t been able to tackle the rest of the year.
November is the month of our annual dinner auction, and our office team spends an incredible amount of time getting everything in place to pull off this huge fundraiser for camp.
In December, we welcome back our Junior Staff and Summer Staff to camp for our annual staff reunions.
January is the time when we start chapel visits. Our team actually visits close to 30 Lutheran schools this month to talk about summer camp! “With such a high demand for summer camp at Lakeview,” said Frisbee, “we want as many people to hear about it before registration goes live.”
Welcome to #LifeOnTheRoad, which is such a blast! We love seeing campers old and new!
February – “Registration!“
As you might imagine, with camp registration opening in February, we stay pretty busy managing those registrations. “The opening of registration is very exciting but also a high-intensity time for us,” said Frisbee.
The team stays balanced by heading off to the NLOMA retreat, where we hang out with Lutheran camp co-workers from across the country and get a bit of a refresh.
Early Spring (March, April) – “Calm Before the Storm“
March is the team’s last chance to take a break before April, where summer prep cranks into high gear. We wrap up camp projects, start ordering supplies and equipment, and fill any hiring gaps. April is also when our retreat groups start getting busy again, with many school and youth groups coming out to camp for a spring retreat.
May – “Shifting to High Gear”
“We actually consider May to be the start of our summer season,” said Frisbee. “We host the Southern Indiana District pastor’s conference at the start of the month and then have Work Weekend to get ready for the summer. Summer staff start to arrive after that. Then it’s time to welcome summer campers all over again!
So there you have it! One year of the camp life. One of the great things about working at camp is every season is a little bit different. Summer is great, but every season at camp offers great connections happening, ministry opportunities, and blessings from God.