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UPDATES
Family Camp
We had over 100 people come out Labor Day weekend to celebrate Camp Mardela history. We had wonderful presentations from Daryl Calloway, Pat Ecker, Bruce Layton, and Jen Summy, as well as pleasant additions from Jo Ebling who shared about Byron and Kathryn Berkey, and Lois Schall who shared about Dick Smith and her own time at interim administrator at Camp Mardela. We were thrilled to have Steve Frazier as our speaker for the Sunday morning church service. We played a rousing new game of Mardela-eopardy, enjoyed swimming, boating, fishing, puzzles, music, and just getting to spend time with new and old friends at camp.
Camp Supper
Our Camp Supper went very smoothly this year. We sold about 450 meals and made about $7,000 gross profit for Camp Mardela! Thank you to everyone who helped make this supper possible. There were helpers from Community of Joy, Greenhill, Easton, Fairview, Bethany, Ridgely, and Denton Brethren Churches. Many people who came were regular Camp Supper attendees, but about 25% were first-timers, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal and Camp Mardela!
UPCOMING EVENTS
Birding Retreat - October 20-22
Enjoy a weekend of birding excursions on the Eastern Shore. Stay overnight, or join us for the day's events! The group will carpool when possible, but locals may meet the group at the scheduled locations.
Fall Service Day - November 11th, 9am-5pm
Join us on Saturday to help with our fall clean-up, maintenance, and Christmas decoration! There will be LOTS for everyone to do – for all ages and abilities. Lunch will be provided to all volunteers who come at 12pm.
Sights & Sounds of Christmas - December 9th & 16th, 5pm-8pm
We're hosting our 3rd annual Sights & Sounds of Christmas event at Camp Mardela! Come enjoy Christmas lights, decorations, music, food, and more! We have thoroughly enjoyed offering this new community event and would love for all of you to come. Admission is $5 per vehicle.
PROJECTS
Thursday Volunteers
We're blessed to have volunteers who come weekly to help with camp’s maintenance. This summer, they built new benches, made parking spaces closer to King & Krabill, cut trees, painted benches and playground equipment, and more. Thank you to Stanley Hutchison, Mat Baynard, Bob Musch, Tom Schuyler, Jim Lohr, John Earl Hutchison, Jim Seymore, Gerry Garey, Dean Voorhees, Fred Miller, Darlene Hutchison, Ellen Wile, Felecia Summy, and Sarah Bowdle who have helped on these Thursdays.
Krabill Hall
We're making progress on our Krabill Hall fundraiser, but we still have a ways to go. We're getting ready to upgrade the electric & insulation in Krabill to prepare for the ductless system. We still need about $30,000 to make that possible. We're still accepting donations for this project, & raising funds through our Brick Fundraiser also.
FUNDRAISERS
Brick Sale
Order bricks with custom text to put in the brick garden at the Peace Pole! 4x8 for $75 and 8x8 for $125. Profits from these sales will go towards heat and AC in Krabill Hall. Website to order can be found at www.campmardela.org/keeping-krabill-cool.
Scrip
Order gift cards online & a percentage is given to camp when you use camp's code (request via email). Order at www.raiseright.com.
Camp Store
Buy camp shirts, stickers, and bandanas from the camp store online at www.campmardela.org/fundraisers.
Donation
To make a donation, visit www.campmardela.org/payments or www.paypal.com/paypalme/campmardela.
FALL WORK CAMP
A Historical Excerpt written by Jim Lohr, February 9th, 2023
The Fall Work Camp grew out of a need for various kinds of maintenance needs that were not being addressed. At that time no one was regularly at camp .... Bob & Lois Schall, Jim & Loretta Lohr and Pat Ecker began planning. The offer was to come to camp for a week or whatever time you can give. We will feed you, house you if you wish to stay over, & guarantee some good times around the fireplace in the evenings. Bob would be the director who would do a meeting after breakfast each day ... he would report on progress during a previous day and outline plans for the day(s) ahead. We then would go about our chosen work coming back at 12:30 at the bell for lunch.
The afternoon would be spent finishing or continuing a current project with an easy quitting time for rest and cleanup before supper. Evenings were spent reading, playing turkey-track dominoes or just visiting. About half of the group stayed at camp, the rest went home for the night. Pat Ecker ... had family experience in the restaurant business and kept us wonderfully fed and provided with evening snacks.
A variety of projects requiring multiple day work for an individual or small group were undertaken and completed: construction of a table by the dishwasher window for dirty dishes and trash, painting of several rooms in King Kottage, opening up the border trail, refinishing wooden chairs. Attendees were the Schalls, Lohrs, Bill & Pat Ecker, Jim & Carol Replogle, John Earl & Mary Ellen Hutchison, Tom & Jo Schuyler, (and others).
A Letter from our BVS Volunteer
Written September 1st, 2023
Hi there, I’m Jonas Baron, camp's new BVS Volunteer!
I’m from Berlin, not Maryland but Germany, and I’m going to serve at Camp for the following year. I’m 18 years old and just graduated High School. In Berlin I volunteered at my church for four years by helping with the confirmation classes. That’s four years of experience in work with youth and I’m here to share and increase these experiences at camp.
I arrived in the evening of Wednesday August 9th so my camp experience started with the Thursday-Volunteers and a lot of painting. Now half my clothes are matching the benches and gagaball-pit near the pavilion! Even though it’s been only three weeks at camp I already know what all my keys are for, I learned how to drive the Golf-Cart (which is a lot of fun), how to play carpet pool, the rules for archery and canoe/kayaking and now I’m a certified Food Handler. Also, I went Balloon chasing and decorated a church with fruits.
So as you might guess I had a lot of fun this first month and with a start like this I really think the rest can only get better, I’m really looking forward to spent my next year at this beautiful camp.
P.S. Please follow and like our new Instagram account, I’m creating most of the posts! @camp_mardela