Is That Really Don Cherry?

2019 started off with a bang...well more of a ricocheting slap shot!  Our 10th Annual Pond Hockey was last Saturday, January 12.  As most of you know we have been experiencing a warmer than usual winter - which is making everyone happy right?  Well, mostly right.  The down side of warm weather?  Difficult ice making conditions!  However, the hard work of our staff paid off.  With only two weeks to go, the ice was in great shape - even though the warmer days meant we couldn't make ice after lunch.

Then with about a week to go before the big day I made the mistake of looking at the forecast for Saturday.  Plus 5!  Plus 5 is almost summer here in Alberta.  Plus 5 is a cause for celebration for most of us...but...ice melts at plus 5!  As we all know there is not much we can do about the forecast - except pray.  And pray I did!  The forecast for Saturday continued to look bleak (albeit wonderful at the same time) as the week moved on.  Wednesday - plus 7!  Thursday - plus 5 - OK I thought, we are moving in the right direction.  And then on Friday the forecast for Saturday was...wait for it...plus 9!  Are you kidding?  PLUS 9!  (Capitals were added for dramatic effect!)  I prayed, "Lord this is your Pond Hockey and your camp.  I pray for colder weather, but leave tomorrow in your hands."

Saturday morning dawned cloudy and cool.  Not super cold, but below freezing.  As players and guests arrived from the north, south, and east, they commented about the temperatures they encountered on the way to camp.  Many hit plus temperatures somewhere on their journey to Evergreen in those early morning hours!  What were we in for I wondered?  But the day continued to be cloudy and cool.  The ice was near perfect.  Was that chance or was that our awesome God allowing us to have perfect weather for Pond Hockey?  I'm going with our Awesome God!

It was a great day.  Ken and the kitchen gang put out the usual fare of savoury cuisine and we had about 260 people join us for sloppy joes at lunch.  Supper was this incredible BBQ chicken (thanks Fred!) and the dining hall was full with 175 people.  Don Cherry (who surprisingly enough looks a lot like Gery Schubert) was our special guest and guess who went home (the second year in a row) with the silent auctions world famous peanut butter pie from Linden!  Oh my lanta that pie schmeckt gut!

We had the largest number of kids join us for their "skills" competition, our wagon rides were full, and the District 5 Slugs (ask our board chair where the name came from) won the tournament for a record breaking fourth time!  Our top sponsored team, the Gem Generals, raised just over $6,000!  This is the second year in a row for the Generals.  Our total so far is in the $33,000 neighbourhood.  Funds are still trickling in and if you want to join the trickle helping us reach the goal of $40,000 that would be awesome!  Thanks so much for your participation as a donor, player, guest, staff member, or volunteer.

I invite you to join us this year as we continue to reach higher bringing the life changing Good News of Jesus Christ to the children, youth, and families of Alberta.  Join us in prayer.  Join us on site as a volunteer.  Join us by becoming a monthly donor.  God is truly at work in and through us!

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

Eleven

Two things came to my mind yesterday when I thought of the number eleven.  First I'm reminded of our good friend Fritzi who was part of our first group of German volunteers back in 2012 - the same year I started here at Camp Evergreen.  We were at a fundraiser in Edmonton (Lendrum) and were heading back to camp late at night.  In need of a snack to help keep us awake at night we stopped at the 7-11 just before exiting the city.  Fritzi was having a hard time deciding what to buy (which if I remember was a regular occurrence!) when I suggested she try a slurpee even though it was quite cold outside.

As she was browsing through the cup sizes, one of the cups had a movie theme on it.  With the movie cup in her hand she realized that this was way too scary of a cup to drink out of, and in replacing the cup back on the stack, knocked a whole wack of cups (a wack is equal too or greater than 4 stacks of cups) behind the slurpee machine.  Fritzi was very apologetic at the counter and that's how we came to calling her Jessica Seven-Eleven Fritzi!  Fritzi ended up coming back a second time to volunteer here at Evergreen and I would like to say thanks again Fritzi, you are welcome back anytime!

Our German connection has become very important to helping us in our ministry.  I think that it is safe to say that without their help over the past six years we wouldn't have been able to serve as many guests and campers as we have.  Claudia arrived this week from Neu-Ulm and is now German number 34!

The other reason I'm thinking of eleven is because when I started this blog we were eleven campers short of our total last summer.  This morning that number eleven dropped to six.  We are 162 campers ahead of last year at this time.  21 of our 28 camps are full.  We recently tweaked a couple of our camps in an effort to create more room for campers.

We are fielding calls every day from parents who are hoping that our web site is wrong, that we're not full and there is room for their child.  I was in the dining room yesterday when Josh was inviting the St. Alphonsus students at the end of their band camp back in summer.  Unfortunately there were very few spots open in their age group.

That is why we are Reaching Higher - to create more room and expand our ministry.  The board will be meeting this Saturday with the only agenda item being Reaching Higher.  We need to grasp the urgency, we need to realize the potential and we need to make a pledge!

And what about the blog word of the week?  St. Alphonsus band left one of their mallets here at camp simply because some of the students couldn't get enough of our dogs.  Sometimes I'm still surprised at how much they are loved.  As the bus was about to leave a couple of boys came into the Welcome Centre to say good-bye - to the dogs - not me!  And they forgot their drum mallet.  I'm glad the dogs are helping us give our guests and campers a great experience, but there must be some way to send the mallet back home with one of the dogs...

Thanks for your support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

It Happened Again!

Well it happened again.  One of our student guests came with his band camp in March of this year, had a great experience with our staff, and went home very excited about Camp Evergreen.  His parents caught his excitement and registered their family for Family Camp - only to find out that Family Camp is full.  (Remember our first Family Camp filled in less than an hour after registration opened!)  This family is now 7th on the waiting list and hopefully there is enough movement on the list that we can get them in.

This challenge is not new to us.  We are entering our very busy spring season next week.  From Tuesday until the end of June (actually till the end of October) we will have a guest group on site every day.  Many of our student guests will have the same great experience this young man had.  They will bond with our staff, (we have a great staff!) and will go home excited about Evergreen.  However, when they try to register for summer camp it will be full.  As of writing this blog we are 132 campers ahead of last year at this time.  16 of our camps are full.  We have made some adjustments to ages and camps in an effort to squeeze a few more campers in this summer.  And yet, we have been turning children away as early as January.

Between now and the end of June we will see approximately 1,500 guests, the majority of which are camper age.  We will be turning campers away for the next two months.

That is why we are Reaching Higher.  The board has recently talked about increasing our ministry capacity by 50% in 5 years.  That is an aggressive goal.  But the reason is as simple as it is clear - we want to see more children have a life changing experience here at Evergreen.  Pray for us as we work hard to accomplish that goal.

With all our guests and campers we are still looking for a few more spring staff and summer volunteers.  The spring staff positions are paid positions and you can contact Lane for more information.  staff@camp-evergreen.com

In summer we're looking for adult volunteers to spend a week in the (fun) kitchen.  And if you're 16 years or older and love working with children, we need you to volunteer for a week or six!  Again, please contact Lane for more information.

And what about that blog word of the week?  Some of you are thinking, "How is Ranger going to tie hatchet into Reaching Higher?"  Sometimes I wonder the same thing myself.  Well, this weekend is our Ladies Retreat.  There will be lots of ladies.  (read LOTS of ladies!)  The small lodge reno was finished just in time.  We have a coffee plan ready to kick in, (did you catch the pun?) and it looks like we will huck some boots again.

New for this year...well you will just have to wait to find out about the hatchet.  But I can say with great confidence, there is a hatchet somewhere in Ladies Retreat 2018!

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

A Little Of This...

-35 is what I woke up to this morning.  Minus Thirty Five!!!  And then it got colder!  -37!  It seems that winter is trying hard to hang on here at Camp Evergreen and so far it's doing a great job.  We experienced the same snow storm yesterday as most of you did which created perfect snow shoeing and snow shoveling conditions!  In spite of the cold and in spite of the snow, our guest group arrived on site this morning which is a great segway into sharing our need for a new lodge.

You may have heard of the phrase - there is no such thing as bad weather - only bad clothing.  While that may be true we are finding more and more of our guest groups have temperature guidelines from their school districts or head offices.  We're pretty happy working in -20.  (Well, pretty happy is a little subjective and it's safe to say we're usually not ecstatic!)  But once it gets colder than -20 things stop working.  Gators, quads, our hands, even Scamp.

Today is a great example of why we are reaching higher with our new lodge  As we continue to push into the colder months we need the flexibility to keep on programing when it's -37 outside.  More meeting space today would have allowed us the opportunity to be more creative with this school.  An Adventure Centre today would have allowed us to climb inside and to have archery indoors.  Believe me it's much easier climbing inside than outside with 36.3 layers of clothes on!

If you're wondering what it would feel like to serve a school when it's -37, bundle up, stop by Courtney's office for a Hand Warmer, and join us as we do our best to give this school a great experience.  We're hoping some of the students come back as campers!

Speaking of campers - as of the writing of this blog we are 161 campers ahead of last year at this time with a total of 732 campers registered.  11 camps are full.  Remember last year our family camps filled up quickly.  29 minutes is all it took for our first family camp to fill this year.  That's got to be a record.

What's currently happening at camp these days?  A little of this and a little of that.  We re-painted and touched up the Creative Arts Building.  We're in the process of hanging curtains in there so when we use it as a band clinician room the trombones won't bounce off the walls quite as much.  The Mini Lodge's main room got a fresh coat of paint.  Rolf is working on the new beverage bar counters when he's not plowing, plowing or plowing.  Max and Dylan are working on garage shelves for the new homes.  There is no shortage of things to do.

With weather like this - I can hardly wait for summer!

Thanks for your continued support.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director

Timeline

As both the Red House and Green House are getting close to completion I thought it would be fun to take a look back on how it all started.  A trip down memory lane as it were.

On Thursday October 20th, 2016, the excavator arrived all the way from Edmonton to dig the holes for the new homes.  Later on that same day, Craig, Jordan, Rolf and Kevin put the final stakes in the ground to map out house number one.

The next day, October 21st, Rolf was busy building a road back to house number two.

Our good friend Arnold from Edmonton, arrived on Saturday the 22nd to start digging the basements.  It seems like a long time ago already!  Craig needed to do some fine tuning on the dig and so he brought his own mini excavator!  (BYOME)  Let me say one more time how much we (I) like and appreciate Craig! 

Remember when the blog word of the week was schrakjlijch?  Well when we started working with the footings on October 28th it was very, very schrakjlijch down in the hole.

On November 15th, while it was snowing outside, we were pouring the basement walls and by the 17th the basement walls were being sprayed with a black, tar like material.

A month after we started digging the basements our building packages from Star Building arrived on site.  A big shout out to David for taking care of us at Star.  And on November 29th, the first beam on house number one is up!  I remember making a comment about beam me up Scotty - in reference to our framer Scott.  Thanks again Scott and Brian for serving us so well through the good weather, cold weather, super cold weather and then...the mud!

It was a cold winter and I remember nail guns having a hard time working never mind the framers and volunteers.  Here is Don from Gem on December 1st screwing the floor down.  Right where Don is standing there is now a hardwood floor.  And we had two father/son combo's helping us on December 3rd.  Richard and Ethan from Gem and Brian and Kurt from Calgary.

By December 22nd - less than a month after starting - house number one was looking like - well it was looking like a house was supposed to look like!  :)  And on December 28th one of our Alberta Mennonite Brethren pastors - Laurence was braving the cold and helping finish the garage.

January 4th, 2017, the first beams were going up on house number two.  It was very cold, and if you look hard in the background you'll see another father/son combo, Walt and Nathan from Edmonton also braving the cold as work continues to progress.

January 20th saw the tin roof up on house number one.  A big thanks to Ron and his crew from Duchess who installed the roof on both homes.  You may remember my reference to tin roof ice cream - tin roof is one great tasting ice cream.

One of my favourite Reaching Higher stories comes out of the two roofs.  We received one invoice for both roofs in the amount of $4,000.  In the same envelope as the invoice, was a donation cheque for $5,000.  If you think about it, not only did we get two free roofs, we actually made $1,000!!  How fun is that?  Because of the incredible support we are getting, both homes are being built for approximately half their retail value!

Thanks very much for your continued support as we push to finish the year strong financially.  Stay tuned next week as we continue down the staff home timeline.

Bob "Ranger" Kroeker
Executive Director