  Creation Vacation
We were fortunate to pair up with a group of social workers at an urban low-income housing community who shared the vision and who helped choose, train, and prepare the families for the four-day adventure. After the first two years we learned that we need to provide a “family friend” for each one or two families to guide them through the multiple recreation options, the schedule of activities, the community-building activities, and the family-style meal service. With many young children, child care is also necessary at times to give parents respite as well as freeing adults to help for a turn of KP. The gift of a vacation for these families requires providing bus or van transportation, housing, food, insurance, and support services. We provide sleeping bags or bedding for a quarter of the persons. Providing a separate room for 30 families and 25 volunteer staff utilizes our entire 250-bed facility. Activities enjoyed have included fishing, sand sculptures, building birdhouses, environmental awareness activities, crafts, hikes, campfire singing, worship, and boating. The families are given input into the range of activities and programs available. Much appreciated have been the disposable cameras given each family with the film developed overnight just before departure. The full event cost has been about $125 per person. Funds have been raised from foundations, churches, individuals, and several of our business suppliers who have given discounts or grants. We have even had commercial bus drivers donate their time after seeing the joy of the families. Funds were sufficient in 1998 to allow Camp Magruder to also sponsor a much-appreciated day apart for an urban women and children’s shelter, providing van transportation, lunch, and recreation. One mother at Creation Vacation wrote in her journal, “This morning I woke up as usual at 5:22 AM! So I spent the first 1 1/2 hours enjoying the beauty of it all. The peace and quiet, the birds, the ocean. This truly is a beautiful world. I can’t believe I’d forgotten....” With such responses we are looking to endow and enlarge the scope of the program. Ted L. Hulbert, Director, Camp MagruderPhone: (503) 355-2310 Email: campmagruder@oregoncoast.com
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amp Magruder on the Oregon coast hosted its first Creation Vacation in June 1997 with the goals of (1) giving a family vacation to low-income families who don’t have these relationship-building and renewal opportunities, and (2) bringing persons into a positive, awe-filled relationship with God’s natural creation. Hosting 59 persons from a low-income housing community the first year, it has grown to 110 persons from 30 families expected for the 1999 event. Each year it’s exciting to see chidren and adults playing freely in a safe environment, discovering an ocean some had never seen, and enjoying plentiful wholesome food in the dining hall.