Our first year of taking sole ownership over the Black Hills FCA Sports camp in Spearfish, SD, was a great success! Black Hills Sports Camp is the ultimate fusion of Faith and Sport. Campers elect to focus on one of our 11 different sport options. They spend 4 days and 3 nights doing everything with their huddle, led by a college athlete (huddle leader). They go to meals together, sport sessions together, small groups together, then evening worship and chapel together. It is a beautiful picture of authentic and intensive discipleship in a short amount of time. The relationships that are forged at camp can truly last a lifetime.
Although our camp is primarily put on to serve our 7th-12th grade athletes, it reaches far beyond them. We witness our college huddle leaders leaving camp forever changed. Coaches lives and lenses are greatly transformed. Volunteers, spouses, and their kids are all impacted by how the Lord moves at camp. We do our best to have programming for all the different groups of individuals that attend. We welcomed individuals from ages 6 months old to 79 years old this year at camp this past year.
As our staff well learned, it takes a village to put on camp! All our volunteers, coaches, huddle leaders, and their families graciously donated their time to make camp such a wonderful event. We ended up with 208 campers, 38 college huddle leaders, and 48 coaches and volunteers. Our total number of people at camp (family members included) was 377. Most importantly, lives were transformed. For this, we thank the Lord! Of our 208 campers, 52 of them made a first-time decision to submit their lives to Jesus Christ, and 55 rededicated their lives after admittedly falling away! We love that we can provide this opportunity for making disciples and Kingdom expansion through FCA.
As we look ahead to camp in 2024, we are praying for growth. We would love to see over 300 campers attend! It is not finalized, but we are hoping to have camp the same 3rd week in June. Lastly, we are always seeking financial sponsors/donors to help keep our costs as low as possible. In 2023, 48% of our campers relied on scholarship help to get to camp. If you want to help make an eternal impact by financially supporting camp, please reach out to a FCA Staff person and we will get you more information. Our goal is to raise $30,000 for camp in 2024. As you can see from above, supporting our camp has a very high return on investment!
