Clare's Camp

It’s time for Clare’s Camp again!

2008 applications and volunteer forms:
Camper Application
Camper Application for St. Clare's Parishioners
Volunteer Application
Counselor Application

Four years ago, The Reverends Rick and April Greenwood, co-vicars of St. Clare’s Episcopal Church, heard a very disturbing bit of data. The City of Richmond announced that in the summer of 2003, six thousand children under the age of twelve would be released to the streets of the city with no daytime adult supervision and nothing to do. The Greenwoods felt that God was asking them and the people of their newly established church to respond to this complex problem in an innovative manner.

With very little money and a whole lot of inspired energy, Clare’s Kids Camp was formed during the summer of 2003. It was held at The Steward School in a few rooms on its beautiful campus. Although it was only a week long and served about fifteen children, it opened the church community to the possibilities of a much larger and more significant camp being undertaken by the small, emerging faith community.

The second summer camp was held for two weeks at the Virginia Diocesan Center at Roslyn and served approximately fifty children: twenty-five from Fairfield Court Elementary School and the Peter Paul Development Center in the East End of the city and twenty-five from St. Clare’s Episcopal Church in Henrico. Swimming, soccer, dance and movement were three new activities added to the camp’s curriculum.

In April 2005, a few months before the third camp took place, the First Annual Clare’s Kids Camp Charitable Golf Tournament netted over $7,000 to fund the Clare’s Kids Program. Clare’s Kids Camp used this additional source of revenue to continue its camp and expand its outreach by creating fun and enriching events held monthly throughout the school year for many of the campers. The children have gotten together for food, fun, and fellowship through a wide variety of activities including: a visit to the U-Turn Athletic Ministry Program; Fall Festival at Roslyn; visit to the Children’s Museum of Richmond followed by a Thanksgiving Dinner, Twelfth Night Celebration, Independence golf outing and robotics competition.

In 2006, Clare’s Kids Camp was a two-week long, cross-cultural, tuition-free weekday camp held at Roslyn offering arts and crafts, swimming, music, Bible stories and a multitude of other enrichment activities for a diverse group of 65 children in grades K–6 throughout the Richmond area.
The purpose of the camp and the events held during the year is to develop deeper bonds of affection between children and families, to offer enrichment opportunities to disadvantaged youth and to promote racial reconciliation.