Dear Friend of Ghormley
I am writing to you today, grateful for you, and for God’s provision to sustain Camp Ghormley during this difficult season. We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of our camp community to support us financially, emotionally, and spiritually as we waited for the Retreat Fire to subside. We are eternally grateful for the firefighting crews, who heavily defended the Ghormley property to ensure camp was unharmed.
While the main fire came within 1/2 mile of camp, the camp property was largely spared. One small spot fire did come within 150 yards of one of our camp staff homes, but was quickly extinguished. Praise God!
This past week, we were able to return to camp property, but challenges to reopening remain.
The following hurdles remain before we can begin serving guests again:
(1) Power being restored to our area. Our local power utility estimates that power will not be restored on White Pass until late September at the earliest.
(2) Dining Hall Cleanup. Our Dining Hall, while spared from fire damage, will require professional cleanup assistance due to spoiled food products.
(3) General Camp Cleanup. This is where you come in. When we left camp on July 23rd, we were in the middle of a summer camp session. This means that there is a lot of work to do to clean up and organize camp that normally would have been done by our summer staff team in early August. There is also some cleanup work to be done due to the fire crew activity within camp while we were evacuated. Finally, we would like to use this “down time” to accomplish some important small projects that require more skilled labor.
The bottom line is….there is something for everyone!
To help in this endeavor, we have created a public project list which you can view to see how you might be able to help.
We will be hosting Saturday work days beginning August 31st, and throughout September, until the work is done and we’re ready to host guests again! A simple BBQ lunch will be provided. Can’t make it on a Saturday? Let us know what your availability is, and we’ll make it happen!
To RSVP, please call us at 509-672-4311, or email office@campghormley.com!
Thank you again for your prayer, support, and concern. We look forward to seeing how God will work at Camp Ghormley in this upcoming season.
Joel Whitehead
