Camp ASCCA Blog

Today, Administrator John Stephenson and Marketing Director Dana Rickman traveled to Montgomery for the Kiwanis Club Grant Awards Day. Camp ASCCA was gifted $4,100 by the Kiwanis Club of Montgomery Foundation for the backup power supply for the water delivery system here at camp. This year, the Alabama National Fair raised $245,000, and the Kiwanis Club of Montgomery distributed it to the sponsored organizations.

On March 9th, high school students from throughout South Alabama visited Camp ASCCA for the annual leadership conference, Rotary Youth Leadership Awards. Each year, more than 50 rotary clubs sponsor a few students from their areas to represent their communities and grow in their leadership abilities. The students and their leaders stay onsite at Camp ASCCA for three nights and spend each day completing team-building activities and learning more about what life is like after high school.

On Saturday, February 27, a group of engineering students from Auburn University visited Camp ASCCA for a member meeting and a day of team building. The students are members of an organization known as the Cupola Engineering Society, and they serve as ambassadors for the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. According to the Auburn University website, the Cupola Engineering Society was developed in the fall of 1996 and was named after the official symbol of the College of Engineering.

Over the weekend, the Alexander City Boy Scout Troop #67 visited Camp ASCCA to spend time in the great outdoors and work on new projects. Different than most groups that visit Camp ASCCA, the boys brought their own tents and camped out by the ASCCA fishing pond.

Camp ASCCA Director of Marketing and Communications, Dana Rickman, visited the town of Evergreen, AL, today to speak with representatives from the local Kiwanis Club. During their meeting, Dana spoke with Tom Nielsen and Patricia Fowler about Camp ASCCA and general updates about what we have planned for this year.

Each year Camp ASCCA has the opportunity to nominate someone for the Easter Seals Alabama Gold Award. The nominee is often a person who has shown great devotion and dedication to Camp ASCCA for more than 5 years. This year Camp ASCCA nominated Dale Glover of Tuscaloosa to be a 2016 recipient of an Easter Seals Gold Award. Easter Seals Alabama presents this award to volunteers who have contributed in a significant manner to the work of the organization for no less than five years. Their involvement can be through Easter Seals county chapters, Easter Seals affiliate boards, Easter Seals corporate board and committees, fundraising events or activities that benefit Easter Seals Alabama programs and services.

With each ASCCA summer come lifechanging moments, unforgettable friendships, and a feeling that you have found your home. Heading into the office today, I could not help but think about the memories that will be made this year. We are officially 150 days away from the start of our first ASCCA summer session of 2017, and we are already in motion to prepare.

This week, Camp ASCCA was a recipient of a 2016/2017 Arts & Community Building Community Trust Grant from the Central Alabama Community Foundation. Dana Rickman (pictured above) and John Stephenson met with the foundation on Monday to receive an amount of $2,500. The grant has helped with the much needed conversion of our voice and data wireless systems here at Camp ASCCA.

On Monday, January 23, the ASCCA on the Road team began a three-day long trip through Baldwin County visiting schools, organizations, and local basketball games to speak about Camp ASCCA. We had the opportunity to meet with students across the county between the ages of 6 and 19 to discuss how to attend camp and how to be a part of the summer staff.

As many of you know, each week the ASCCA on the Road team has been visiting different schools and organizations to discuss what we do at Camp ASCCA and how others can get involved. This week we visited Union Springs Elementary School and South Highlands Middle School to meet with their classes and make their own personalized Camp ASCCA spin art t-shirts.

Earlier this week, we opened registration for Summer 2017 to all potential campers, returning and new. Every day we receive a flood of applications and have also begun the approval process. As our team receives your application, it will be processed and evaluated by our staff.

Here at Camp ASCCA, we have started off the new year with a surge of staff applications for the upcoming summer, ASCCA on the Road trips, and weekend camps starting up soon. Outside of summer plans, we have many events coming up this winter/spring, and we want to keep you in the loop on all of the upcoming happenings.