The Evergreen Shuffle

The Evergreen Shuffle - not to be confused with the Rankin Families "Mull River Shuffle" - is the staff here at Evergreen moving from house to house.  Here is the skinny:

- the Kroekers moved from the Blue Trailer to the Green House.
- The Underwoods moved from the Grey Trailer to the Red House.
- The Thielmann's moved from the Little Brown House to the Blue Trailer - after a wonderful painting job led by Mikaela.
- John moved from the Brown House to the Little Brown House and immediately put up two Calgary Flames flags at the front door.
- Dylan moved from the Lodge to the Little Brown House and now there is only one Calgary Flames flag flying!
- The female seasonal staff have moved into the Grey Trailer and will be sleeping on newly constructed bunk beds.
- The male seasonal staff will be moving into the Brown House.

Thankfully this didn't all happen at the same time as we've been sharing the 1 ton truck for moving!  We're hoping the end result will give us a little more elbow room in the lodge for guest groups and campers as space continues to be one of our challenges.  So we've built some more bunks, fixed some walls, painted some walls and anticipate the shuffle finale is about a week away.

Speaking of space, space is rapidly disappearing in our summer camps.  At the time of this writing we are 125 campers ahead of last year, we have 650 campers registered and seven of our summer camps are already full!  That means we were already turning campers away in January which is the main reason we are reaching higher.  We want more kids to be able to experience the life changing experience of summer camp.

Now that the homes are finished, the board and building committee have turned their focus to the new lodge.  The biggest challenge we have - at least from this directors perspective - is fundraising.  Fundraising is difficult, I guess that's why they don't call it Easyraising!  As many of you already know, we are very close to raising our first million through cash and pledges.  We've raised $974,452.11 to be exact.  Where did the eleven cents come from you might be asking?  We've had quite a few young children support us, and sometimes they give us their hard earned cash money in pennies.  These children are an example to those of us who can give more than pennies!

My encouragement today is to all our supporters who are not quite willing to make a commitment, not quite willing to make a pledge - just in case we don't end up building.  I don't know if I can make it any clearer - we are building.  We have to build.  Did you read those numbers two paragraphs ago.  We're turning campers away in January!  The question then is not if we're building, but when we're building.  The trouble with waiting for "someone else" to donate before we donate, is that then we will be waiting a long time - time we just don't have.  Your pledge doesn't have to be a lot.  (However if it was a lot that would be good!)  We just need your pledge.

Thanks again for your continued support.


Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director