Registration for our summer sessions is NOW OPEN!
Spots in our summer sessions are filling up quickly, and we experienced a record number of registrations on the first day! Visit our website for Summer Camp details and to register for summer camp this year! Early Bird Pricing runs through April 6.
We can’t wait to see you under the summer sun at DuBois Center.
We are still hiring a few more people to round out our summer staff with a special need for additional counselors. Counselors must be 18+ and willing to work with kids in several age groups. Working as a summer camp counselor is a great way to get job experience, make some extra money, and have fun. Email Rylee at program@duboiscenter.org for an application packet!!
Many of you have known me my whole life, but allow me to introduce myself. I’m Rylee Hodges-Stone and I grew up at DuBois Center. I’m now serving as Program Director and I’ve spent the off-season months reevaluating, revamping and creating programs. We’re now offering updated versions of popular middle-school specialty camps for high school age campers, we’re bringing some beloved camp themes back out of retirement, and we’re finding every way we can to better utilize our magnificent site with every activity.
Here is a picture of me at DuBois Center as a brand-new half-week camper. I was granted special exception to attend camp a year earlier than my grade level would allow. I begged my pastor, the late Gretchen Sterrett of New Baden Zion UCC, to write a letter explaining that I was the oldest kid in my class, and that I was certainly “mature enough to go.” She cut a deal with me: if I would work the chili and fish dinners to earn my camp scholarship, she’d get me in. I kept up my end of the deal, serving lemonade and helping with dishes at what must have been ten thousand dinners, and she kept up her end and got me into my home, The DuBois Center, just in the nick of time.
From deal-cutting half-weeker to dedicated horse camper to barn assistant to coordinator and now to Program Director, I’ve never lost my drive to serve all the lemonade it takes to get the job done. In this new position of management, I’ve created a goal for my staff: to better utilize staff training time, with a clear focus on establishing relationships, creating a strong love for DuBois Center and learning how to work as a team. This time needs to be spent fully devoted to certifying our staff on the key skills that are required every day of summer session. It’s crucial that we spend this limited time facilitating our staff’s familiarization with the site, the equipment, the job and the team – and maintain the flexibility to adapt to our diverse staff’s needs.
Even after this densely packed training ends, for seven weeks straight our staff members spend an average of 130 of the 168 hours in a week at DuBois Center. This leaves less than 48 hours for all personal needs to be met between sessions – this is a huge ask of every summer staff member and we owe it to them to do all we can to set them up for success. Our staff deserves excellent support because they work hard to create excellent experiences for our campers: summer camp is often the best week of a camper’s entire year.
2020 was not only our first year out of operation in decades, it also marked the departure of Shirley Asmussen, the long-serving director I had known as a camper. With all the chaos, it’s no wonder that many tasks have piled up – and they have piled up higher than our staff can handle without your help. Our summer staff arrive ready to fully commit to facilitating a safe and fun experience for each and every DuBois Center camper – your assistance with these tasks in the coming months means directly supporting our staff’s ability to keep their attention focused on the campers. I am asking for your help. Volunteer assistance with site preparation is needed before we can open for the 2022 Summer Session.
I’ve scheduled a volunteer day and a volunteer retreat for the spring of 2022:
All of the work can be done at an entry-level skill set, no special expertise or tools necessary – if you can push a broom, pull a weed, or dust a cobweb, we need your help! Ready to pitch in?
I love DuBois Center. I loved being a camper, and it means the world to me to be able to welcome new generations of campers, and even second and third generation campers back to our camp for fun, adventure, worship, and growth. We all need each other, and right now we need you. DuBois Center is so unique among area camp facilities for its strong legacy of families, communities and congregations working together to “pay it forward” and keep our doors and arms open.
I invite you to remind yourself why DuBois Center is a part of your life, to be in God’s place and help set up another generation of great camper experiences. Anyone that wants to help DuBois Center is welcome.
Best, DuBois Center Program Director, Rylee Hodges-Stone
The DuBois summer staff and volunteers were recently awarded the first-ever Mountain Mover Award from the Conference. This award recognizes the incredible job everyone did to host a successful 2021 camp season. They worked short-staffed the entire summer during an on-going pandemic and still had full camps with no covid outbreaks. The Conference is grateful for their exceptional dedication.
Pictured left to right back row (masks removed for photo): Tom Kahrhoff, Property Caretaker; Ferris McEvoy, Camp Medic; Noah Royer, Counselor; Ryan Goetter, Unit Coordinator; Hayley Elliott, Acting Director of Outdoor Ministries; Catie Goetter, Barn Coordinator; Ashley Klasing, Counselor; Leah Hill, Counselor. Front row: Gracelynn Norgaard, Counselor; Bradan Bruce, Counselor; Rylee Hodges-Stone, Program Director; Norman Bernhardt – camp dog. Not pictured: Bailey Avise-Rouse, Unit Coordinator; Kristian Avise-Rouse, Counselor; Olivia Cruthis, Waterfront Coordinator, Isaiah Galivan, Counselor; Claire Lambert, Counselor; Luke Volmert, Counselor.
Applications are open for Unit Coordinators, Barn Assistants, and Counselors. View our website in the weeks to come for updated employment information and job descriptions. Contact Rylee (program@duboiscenter.org) for an application. Please share the news far and wide! We are looking forward to summer 2022.
We are also now accepting volunteer applications to help with our summer 2022 schedule. Can’t come all summer but want to donate a week of your time? Contact Hayley (director@duboiscenter.org) for an application or to talk about how you can make an impact. Starting in 2022, volunteers at DuBois Center will need to complete additional diversity and inclusion training, so plan now to help us in the spring and summer!
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Thank you to our coordinator team – (first row left to right in photo) Olivia Cruthis, Bailey Avise-Rouse, Rylee Hodges-Stone, and Catie Goetter, and (second row left) Ryan Goetter for coming out to power wash, scrub, and move equipment. More importantly, we are grateful to them for making sure we could serve more than 350 campers this summer at DuBois Center! Without their hard work and dedication, this summer could not have been successful. Thank you for your many efforts!
Hayley Elliott (in photo second row right), Acting Director of Outdoor Ministry
We were lucky to welcome the Sixth Rainbow Camp to DuBois Center on Saturday, August 7. From activities like horseback riding, archery, crafting and canoeing to conversations at a shared table, more than 40 of us enjoyed a day of fellowship, nature, the taste of the first honey from the DuBois Center bees, and camp fun. We look forward to welcoming even more people to Rainbow Camp in 2022 as we continue to draw the circle of God’s love ever wider.
Our Rainbow Camp coincided with our coordinator wrap up of the season, where our summer leadership team comes to debrief and do the manual tasks associated with transitioning from summer to fall. These moments of transition are always bittersweet when you are a year-round camp director. On the one hand, you get to really sleep for the first time in almost three months. On the other, you are saying goodbye (for now) to people who have profoundly impacted you despite only knowing them for a short time. I’d like to share a brief excerpt from our closing circle at Rainbow Camp. While words fail to express my gratitude for your hospitality, I hope you hear it in the spaces between the words.
“One of my favorite things about outdoor ministry is that, over time as you move through a space, it begins to move through you. And so, Rainbow Camp is also the close of our summer season. It’s been 4 months and two days (but who is counting) since I started as Acting Director for Outdoor Ministry. I find it difficult to really put into words the way this space has moved through me this summer. In a large part, I find it difficult because in addition to the beautiful place, it is also these beautiful people who have had this profound impact on me. When you ask an individual to do all the things that are required to reopen a camp, the result is chaos and failure. But when you ask a team to do it? You experience a summer like the one we have had. Sure, things were often haywire; we were understaffed; things could’ve easily fallen apart at any moment; but instead, now we are here, in this beautiful moment, celebrating not only our camp community, but my community as well. I wasn’t sure as an out, loud, queer person what this job might be like, but with a staff like the one we have, who were endlessly supportive and adaptable, even the hardest moments felt joyful, peaceful, important. It is this sort of connectivity and love reflected in my staff that reminds me of the best experiences I have had as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. That moment when everything has fallen apart, but your chosen family picks up the pieces, that’s what camp, and being a queer person, is for me. So, I want to say thank you, whether you’ve shared this space with me for months, or you’ve just been here in this space today. I hope it moved you. I hope it changed you. And I hope you leave feeling a little better than you did when you got here.”
Hayley Elliott, Acting Director of Outdoor Ministry
In the world of summer camps, there are often very public personalities, but it’s the behind-the-scenes jobs that keep us all afloat. We could not have had a successful summer season without our kitchen staff, led by Jason Pauley our Food Service Coordinator, and our maintenance team, Tom and Josh. We are so grateful for those that choose to serve our camp with their various talents and skills.
If you would like to send the kitchen staff or the maintenance team a thank you card, mail can be received for them at our camp address.
In a summer like no other, many folks stepped up to help us pull off the incredible camp programming we have accomplished this summer. Over 350 youth were able to come to camp this summer, many of whom did not get to go to a camp in 2020. So many folks have given one, two, three, and even four weeks of their time to support the mission of DuBois Center and support us in this unprecedented summer. It has truly been an honor to watch those who love this camp come through for our programs this year and choose to be here. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! Thank you for answering our calls.
If you or someone you know loves youth, nature, crafts, swimming, or horses, consider joining us as a volunteer or staff member in 2022!