Camp Summit Celebrates Grand Opening at New Forever Home
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PARADISE, Texas (April 2, 2016) – Camp Summit, a year-round overnight camp for children and adults with physical and developmental disabilities, hosted a grand opening celebration in Paradise, Texas. Over 700 attendees enjoyed tours of Camp Summit’s newly renovated and fully accessible campground with upgraded facilities including a spacious dining hall, cabins, beach entry pool, archery range, horse ramps, amphitheater, recreation center, nature area, and on-site nursing center.
“Today is a huge milestone for Camp Summit and a huge day for our campers. It’s the beginning of a lot of great things to come”, says Baxter Hines, Chair of the Board of Directors at Camp Summit, “The new camp is an opportunity for us to offer more activities for our campers and for them to make more friends as we increase our capacity and the number of campers we serve. The sky is the limit.”
“One of the biggest improvements of our new camp is the increased capacity, which enables us to serve more campers and reduce the number of campers on our waitlist”, says Lisa Braziel, Camp Director at Camp Summit, “With the new, upgraded facilities we are now truly 100% barrier-free, not just accessible. Since we have had a hand in the design, renovation and development of this facility, we were able to ensure that there are no barriers for our campers.”
Camper David Ross represented all Camp Summit campers during the ribbon cutting ceremony, officially opening the new campground. “Cutting the ribbon...breaks the bondage of the campers so they can go outside these gates and do every single thing they can”, said Ross.
“The new camp is just phenomenal, said Joel, a Camp Summit camper. “What I like best about camp is the fact that everyone is accepted regardless of what disability or where you’re from. Being at a camp where they understand me is fantastic. The counselors are awesome, they’re friendly, and they crack me up. I’d rather be here than anywhere else.”
Camp Summit was founded in 1947 by the Soroptomist International Club of Dallas and has been holding camp sessions on a 117-acre leased property in Argyle, Texas for the last 68 years.
“We have been planning for some time for when we would outgrow the Argyle location,” said Camp Summit CEO Carla Weiland, “This new facility brings a true sense of independence and comradery to our campers. The space has been specifically designed so our campers can participate in activities more independently and numerous gathering areas have been built to encourage friendships, conversation, and community”, said Weiland.
The $13.6 million Opening Gates Campaign to move Camp Summit to the new location has been underway since 2013 and has currently received over $10.7 million in grants and donations. “This has been a project in the making for many years”, says Woody Grossman, Capital Campaign Chairman at Camp Summit. “The new camp is unbelievable for the families and the new facilities are wonderful. Everything came together on the capital campaign. We had several early donors that invested significant sums with us and showed their faith in our team. We were surprised that this project and our success came together this quickly, but we had it in our hearts and we were going to make it happen for our campers.”
Camp Summit will be holding the first summer sessions at the new camp starting this May. Registration information can be found at www.campsummittx.org.
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About Camp Summit
Camp Summit is a “sleep away” camp for children, adults and seniors with disabilities. Founded by the Soroptomist International Club of Dallas in 1947, Camp Summit serves more than 2,200 campers with disabilities each year through week-long and weekend programming. Campers are offered a wide variety of traditional camp activities in a barrier-free environment all of which are adapted for campers’ abilities and not limited to their disabilities. Camp Summit has no upper age limit and has campers who have attended camp for over 60 years.
Camp Summit is accredited by the American Camp Association and licensed as a Youth Camp in the State of Texas.
For more information about Camp Summit, please visit www.campsummittx.org or call Carla Weiland at (972) 484-8900.