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We have already been talking about it for weeks, but I wanted to take a minute to talk a little more about Camp Noah, which we will be hosting here at Grace June 16th-20th. Camp Noah is a special week-long program developed by Lutheran Services of Minnesota for children in areas that have been affected by a natural disaster. It merges the best practices from the children’s psychology world and our faith tradition to create a day camp that helps young people work through their emotions and build resiliency.
Lutheridge (NovusWay) and Lutheran Disaster Response Carolinas have partnered to offer Camp Noah in three locations this summer – Arden, Morganton and Boone. Lutheridge is going to be providing the counselors and program materials. We were excited to learn that one of our LSA students, Ella Rose, will be the leader during our week!
In addition to the Lutheridge staff who will be working directly with the children, we have signed a contract with a local school counselor, Jaqueline Alridge, to be on site all week long to provide mental health support to the children in our care.
On our end, Anna Wilder, has volunteered her time to be our site coordinator. She has already been hard at work gathering information and meeting with other site coordinators to make sure we will be ready to host Camp Noah.
As I have mentioned during the announcements, right now we are looking for volunteers to serve during the weeks. Anna has created an online sign-up form (see below). Volunteers can work half or whole days. Church volunteers will surround and support the program in various ways. This may include helping with camper drop-off and pick-up lines, distributing snacks and helping children during lunch time. In addition, the Lutheridge Counselors will have a short break each day which is designed to be a quieter down-time for the campers. Our volunteers will be responsible for providing some quiet activities and supervision during that time.
If you are around during this week and are willing to help, please take a moment to sign up for one or more volunteer shifts.
FInally, as we get a little closer, we will need donations of snacks and other items. So, if you can’t be there to volunteer but still would like to support Camp Noah, see that sign-up below as well.
This is such a wonderful opportunity for us to provide support for children in our community affected by Hurricane Helene, and it is just one more way that we at Grace live out our calling to share God’s love so that all are served and supported.
In Grace,
Pastor Steve
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