Category: Blog

Last summer, during our Younger Girls session at camp, an unfamiliar car came down the driveway. If you’ve ever been to camp, you know it’s unusual for someone to just stumble upon us. The driver explained that his family had been in Lexington for the weekend and his mom could not stop talking about this camp nearby that she went to as a child in the 1940s. Finally, they decided to get in the car and see if they could find Camp Alkulana. As she stepped out of the car, Sarah Collier’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Those are MY cabins,” she said. And sure enough, they were. We toured the camp and she sat by the swimming hole for a time, recalling how she learned to swim there as…

We are pleased to welcome SaraAnne Burgess as our new Camper & Family Liaison! SaraAnne will be managing our camper registration process and connecting in meaningful ways with camper families throughout the year. SaraAnne is not new to the Camp Alkulana family. Her first experience at Camp Alkulana was tearing down walls when we renovated our Retreat House in the 1990s! All four of her children have attended Camp Alkulana and have continued into camp leadership roles. She is a graduate of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and Mars Hill College and a member at Tabernacle Baptist Church. She has served in ministry as a pastor, community minister, and youth minister. She loves to read all kinds of books. In her spare time she is working on a book…

Without fail, every August for the past 3 years I have emerged from the holy "holler" where Alkulana is settled, carrying with me all the “blessin’s and lessons” from our summer. Every song from campfire seems to burst from me if somebody mentions a word from the chorus, a pop culture reference springs a story nobody asked to hear about this one time this one camper said this one thing, and shared dilemma evokes a cautionary tale about a mistake made. I even wrote my thesis on summer camps searching for an excuse to advocate for the value of Camp Alkulana. I’ve come to love this space and the people in it so much that I simply cannot stop talking about it, and certainly that has helped when I go…

One of the things that I’ve loved year in and year out at Camp Alkulana is lifeguarding. We have a great lifeguarding staff; they arrive at camp a little bit early to go through the Red Cross training together, and then work hard to keep the campers safe during aquatics activities during summer camp. We do a lot of water activities: swimming and lessons in the swim hole, canoeing, a partially underwater cave, snorkeling, and so forth. These are some of the highlights of the summer for many kids. One evening during each session we take the campers to local pools for a “pool party.” They always have a blast. This past summer I was lifeguarding for one of these groups, and I had an epiphany of sorts as I…

This year at college I had to take a writing seminar. The theme of the class was “home.” My professor asked questions like: Where is your home? What are the traditions of your home? What defines your home? I had a very hard time answering these questions because I didn’t grow up in a traditional home. I lived in eight different places before going to college. Some of those were with people who weren’t my family or even distant family. Growing up like this made me used to instability. When my professor would ask these questions about home, the only one place I could think to talk about was Camp Alkulana. Camp Alkulana is the only constant I’ve had since I was a child. It was the place that showed…

Camp Alkulana family, you did it again! What a wonderful evening together at the Silent Auction & Dinner on Saturday, April 27! Together we raised OVER $11,000 for your camp and Richmond's children!!! Thank you to the over 200 individuals who attended the event! We are so grateful to our donors who gave 133 items to be auctioned, to our cooks who provided amazing food (Susan Blake Kierson, Elizabeth Lee, Annie Willis, Melissa Knight, and others!), the Camp Alkulana Support Team who coordinated and planned every aspect of the event, (Julie Leslie Agee, Katye Parker Snipes, Tim Reddish, Liz Lee, Bill Rusher, Jordan Payne, Wayne Davis, & John Austin). The local band Scattered Smothered & Covered provided a wonderful atmosphere with their music and Huguenot Road Baptist Church and Matthew…