Part of the community: growing up near a camp in Iowa

Camps can be a rich source of local community solidarity and identity. I grew up on a farm near a small town named Coggon in rural eastern Iowa. When most people think about Iowa, if they do, they think about corn fields and hogs, not camps. My family's farm, however, is located 1.7 miles from Camp Wapsie Y.

As I sat on my parents' front porch this summer, listening to the laughter and cheers of campers' voices drifting across the river valley, I thought about how camp has always been a part of my family and community.

Camp Wapsie Y has been in its present location for over 40 years. It is located on the back waters, referred to as the bayou, of the Wapsipinicon River that meanders through many parts of eastern Iowa before it dumps into the Mississippi. My first encounter with the camp was when I was about six years old. My dad took me fishing on the bayou. I didn't understand what camp was about when I was that young, but I knew that kids were involved with rowboats, bows and arrows, and cookouts.

I visited the camp every spring while growing up. The youth groups in the protestant churches in my small town always had a joint Easter sunrise service at the camp. Each year we prayed that the weather would cooperate at 6:00 am on those March or early April Sunday mornings so we could have the service in the outdoor chapel rather than in the camp dining hall. The sunrise services in this outdoor setting were always inspirational. I remember a time when it was snowing so hard we were not able to have the service. My dad had to take his tractor to pull people out of snowbanks who had tried to drive to the camp for the service.

My first camp experience was at Junior 4-H Camp held over a weekend at Camp Wapsie Y. My first experience as a counselor was six years later at the same location when the county rented the site for our 4-H program. Being less than two miles from home was one way to assure that homesickness would not be a problem for me.

Even after leaving home to go to college, Camp Wapsie Y remained a part of my life. One of my sisters and I developed a Christmas ritual of taking a nature walk every Christmas morning. We sometimes walked down the road to the camp to try to spot deer and other animals or to check on the bayou that was usually frozen by late December.

When my sisters and I graduated from college, my dad decided he was going to get a "real" farm dog that would be a working companion. He wanted no more dogs that followed kids around all day and weren't there when he needed farm animals herded. Dad got an Old Yeller looking puppy that he named Keggar because he slept in a wooden nail keg the first few weeks on the farm. One summer day in his second year, Keggar disappeared. About the third day the dog had been missing, the camp director called to ask if a big friendly yellow dog belonged to my parents. The camp director said the dog had been there for three days and the kids loved him and he loved the kids - he even tried to go swimming in the pool with them.

None of my dad's plans for the dog worked out. Keggar ran over to the camp every chance he had so he could be around children. The camp director would let him stay for an hour or two and then call Dad or Morn to come get him. Even when tied up for several days, the dog didn't forget the campers. The summer ended much too soon for Keggar, and not nearly soon enough for my dad.

Several years later in the dead of winter, Keggar went to camp in search of children, only to end up falling through the ice on the bayou. The camp caretaker risked his own safety to pull the dog out of the icy waters. My parents gave the caretaker and his family a gift of steak and lamb chops as thanks from Keggar.

One of my sisters wanted a small intimate wedding in the outdoors, so she decided to get married at the camp. Under a canopy of light green new leaves emerging from the hardwood trees, she exchanged vows with her husband in the outdoor chapel.

My parents have tried to be good neighbors to the residential camp staff. They have seen people come and go, but have become consistently and most closely involved with the camp in the past 10 years. As members of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in this rural area, Morn and Dad and other individuals in the neighborhood are called to volunteer at the camp. The camp director makes a special effort to invite RSVP volunteers and neighbors who help during the year to a special annual "contributor" dinner.

As a part of her personal fitness program, my morn walks several times a week. Often she walks to the camp because it is the prettiest walk she can take. She also stops by the camp from time to time just to say hello.

One day the camp director asked her if my dad would volunteer to bring his tractor and mow around the sewage lagoon. My more remarked that if the camp had a few sheep, they could permanently take care of the mowing problem all summer. For the past five years, my dad has bought sheep at the weekly livestock auction in early May and brought them to camp. At the end of the summer, he takes them back to the sale barn (fattened up from all that grass they've eaten) and gives the camp whatever profit is made. If the camp loses money, it is my parents' donation.

Although the sheep are not camp pets, they are a point of focus at camp. One summer the camp director called and said that one of the sheep had a lamb. My dad swore that was impossible. Sure enough, instead of two sheep, there were three living along the lagoon that summer. Another summer the area had rain, rain, and more rain. The bayou rose and the sheep had to be evacuated from the lagoon in a rowboat in the middle of the night. The only place to fence them was around the swimming pool. Instead of eating lagoon grass that summer, they grazed on grass within the fenced area of the pool until they returned to the lagoon several weeks later.

The camp serves this rural area of Iowa in other ways. Since the swimming pool is the only one within 20 miles of the camp, each summer the camp staff offers swimming lessons for children and a water aerobics program for adults. In the local paper, the camp director writes a short column about camp news each week and tells about the arrival of the sheep and various other news items of interest to the community.

Many other camps probably have similar stories about local neighborhood and community involvement. Camp is more far-reaching than just direct services. Many children and young adults have benefitted from their experiences at camp; many young people and adults in our community have benefitted from their employment at camp. In addition to those obvious benefits, however, Camp Wapsie Y has been a part of the neighborhood in which I grew up. Although small family farms have changed, the farm community and the camp community share a common bond in this rural area. They share social values and concern for and protection of the environment.

Camps can be a part of the community beyond what they provide in direct social and economic terms. Camp directors may want to consider ways that local communities can become more involved in programs and activities. Using volunteers from the community and recognizing their efforts can be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Camps can provide a neighborhood center, a facility for community activities, a natural area, and a sense of neighborhood. These intangible outcomes are difficult to quantify but are important to another audience that can be supportive of the camping movement.

COPYRIGHT 1995 American Camping Association
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