Over the winter months, our facilities team (made up of John Dobrinski, Ben Otte, and Kim Wright), along with other helpers and volunteers, have been hard at work on several projects that will benefit camp in the long term. You may or may not notice these projects, but they are all great examples of how our facilities team works incredibly hard to make camp a beautiful place for everyone who sets foot here during the year.
Shop Storage Lot
At any given point in time at camp there may be many projects that we have in process, even if they are not being actively worked on. That can sometimes lead to a lot of extra supplies that are sitting around camp, without a specific place to store them. For example, as we prepare to begin work on the 6th Village Cluster, we have a great deal of supplies that we have saved and collected over the preceding years for that project. They have been sitting at the site of the 6th Village Cluster, but now we need to move them to make room for that construction to begin.
In the past, while we would have tried to have tucked those supplies away as well as we possibly could, they probably still would have been a little bit of an eyesore as we found space for them in other parts of camp. But one of the new projects John and Ben completed was building a large storage lot on the back end of the shop parking lot
This storage lot is going to serve as a place where we can put all of our miscellaneous extra project supplies that will keep them in a nice out of the way spot at camp that is not visible by our campers and guests, and will also allow everything to be sorted and within easy reach for the facilities team to use on any project that might pop up.
Shop Vehicle Parking Lot
Another project completed by John and Ben was significantly expanding the gravel parking lot next to the shop to allow room for the large number of vehicles camp has acquired for maintenance use.
Many of these vehicles mainly get used in the summer, or for specific annual tasks, meaning they spend much of their time sitting. In the past, we had to park them at the Dining Hall or Village Lodge parking lots, which took up needed parking space that our retreat groups were not able to use, and made it difficult to collect vehicles when it was time to use them, since they were spread out across camp.
With the new parking lot, all these vehicles are in a single place, within easy access for the facilities team to work on them when they need repairs or maintenance. In addition, there is now much better space available for the facilities team to park their personal vehicles at the shop, instead of needing to park them elsewhere and walk over to the shop.
While these improvements aren’t necessarily anything visitors will notice, what we hope you will notice is the beauty of God’s creation all around camp, without any sort of eyesore or clutter!
Crosses Across Camp Project
What campers and guests WILL see are crosses we made from some cedar logs we needed to clear as well. The idea started when Ben Otte, our facilities assistant, was at the annual Men’s Gathering at camp. “We were encouraged to turn to a cross during a prayer service,” he said, “but it was a tiny cross on the chimney of the Lodge. For Christ being the center of the ministry, I just thought it would be a good idea to have some large crosses on campus.”
That led to him working to create additional crosses to place at various spots on camp, including the Dining Hall, the Dining Hall devo site, and the Village Lodge. See if you can spot the three cedar crosses and one made from reclaimed barnwood (hint: they’re 9 feet tall) when you come to Lakeview this spring and summer!
We’re very grateful for John and Ben and Kim and all the work they do to help make camp a beautiful place to encounter Christ for our thousands of campers and guests each year!