Preparations are continuing for Experience Blue Lake, to be held on Tuesday, July 28, 2009, on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  The event will demonstrate “the depth and breadth of everyday activity associated with our programs,” according to Bill McFarlin, Blue Lake’s Vice President for Development.

Experience Blue Lake, intended to be an annual event, will provide an opportunity for our alumni, supporters, and future campers to benefit from a series of clinics and performances by members of the camp’s nationally recognized faculty.  The program will include an art exhibition, and sessions of interest to music, theater, dance and art students and educators.

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Blue Lake has received a $5,500 grant from the Mary I. and David D. Hunting Family Fund of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.  The grant is to be used for financial-need scholarships for students from Kent County during the 2009 camp season.

The Hunting Family Fund was created in 2002 by the estate of Mary Ives Hunting to make the benefits of the overnight camping experience more readily available to the “underserved” children of Kent County.  Blue Lake’s grant comes from the Access Camps program of this fund, which will award grants of up to $5,500 each to camps that have significant numbers of participants from Kent County.

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Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp will expand both its overall enrollment potential and its opportunities for male campers by opening a new housing unit in time for the 2009 camp season.

The new unit, called Script, will have six cabins—Abbott, O’Neill, Miller, Williams, Simon, Hughes—named after famous American playwrights.  It will be located on the far east side of Camp Sousa, in the vicinity of the Canvas and Highlights units. 

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Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp has been selected to participate in the 17th Annual Detroit Free Press Summer Dreams program.  The program raises money for summer camps that, according to Detroit Free Press Vice President Paul Anger, “give kids the experience to change a life and the memories to last a lifetime.”

The Summer Dreams program will be launched on Thursday, May 7, with a special pull-out section in the Detroit Free Press profiling participating camps.  Each camp profile will include a wish list of needed items, from scholarships to basketballs, and readers can direct support via a mail in coupon or the Summer Dreams website.

Since its inception, the Summer Dreams program has raised more than $12 million, including $9 million in matching funds from the Skillman Foundation.  The Skillman program matches each donation on a 1-to-1 basis, until they reach their maximum allotment for the year.  Typically, this happens within two weeks of the launch date.

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