The Director’s Desk 

By Dan King – March 31, 2025 

Last night a springtime storm brought familiar chaos to Camp Ondessonk. As it always does, the sky soon cleared, ushering in a period of noisy creeks and waterfalls, as well as God’s promises of hope, rebirth, and growth. Like all outdoorsy places, there is a seasonal pattern to our work. I suppose it is the same elsewhere. Here, in spring, each day’s guest log is longer than the one before. When the weather is favorable, scores of people visit, sometimes hiking, sometimes staying overnight, sometimes resting at the base of one of the big beech trees in Phantom Canyon. By mid-April of each year, a hundred or more visitors will be at Camp most days, and school groups and families will rest beneath those same beech trees. Later, during the third week of May, our summer camp staff will show for training, and finally, on the first Sunday of June, God willing, a crowd of more than five hundred, consisting of campers, staff, and volunteers, will gather in the Grotto to Celebrate the Eucharist at opening day Mass. The pattern is perpetually underway. We love it. 

Looking for writing ideas for my contribution to this newsletter, I reviewed a handful of my entries from the past fifteen years. In 2015 I wrote, “Our goals are as lofty as Hogg’s Bluff. We will build Monsignor Fournie Mini Camp Village and a new Rifle Range before Summer Camp 2015.” Those lines make me cringe a bit. Not because of my below average writing. I wince because I wrote the lines on March 22, just two months before Summer Camp staff training would begin. At that moment, our staff and volunteers were racing to complete six large cabins and a brand-new rifle range building by opening day of Summer Camp. It was an unrealistic goal. We did it anyway, and we’ve since learned that the mini-camp project, combined with its full summers of eight- to nine-year-old campers, was the most vital component of Camp Ondessonk’s financial turnaround. We had a hunch that the campers of that age would soon grow to become the campers filling our cabins for 10- to 15-year-olds. We were right. I am glad we did it anyway. 

And so, another pattern continues. As of Friday, March 28, 2025, 2,646 kids were enrolled for 2025 Summer Camp. With your help, we will serve more than 3,300 children this year. To do that, our campers need thousands of Camp Friends, each giving in their own way. If you have children or grandchildren of camper age, please register them for Camp. No kids? Please encourage the kids in your life to enroll. We also need project volunteers, Summer Camp volunteers, and a bunch of people like you to continue making Camp Ondessonk a charitable giving priority.  

Thank you for remaining loyal to Camp Ondessonk. We see you in the faces of our campers and we appreciate what we see, for together we make a difference. 

Sincerely