Register your Camper

E-mail Camp Augusta

Whether by $100 or $150,000, we advance on our goal of replacing the kitchen through each person’s contribution.  Thank you for your consideration!

Camp Augusta is thrilled to have received a $150,000 challenge grant from the Voorhis family! 

This generous gift has been made to quicken the replacement of the Camp Augusta kitchen.  Why a new kitchen, and why is this the highest priority for Augusta?  The kitchen is the hub and heart of a home, and since camp is a home away from home, the same holds true at Augusta.  Everyone who comes to Camp Augusta is touched by the kitchen.  What they eat.  How they eat.  How it feels to eat.  Additionally:

• Community:  switching from a serving line to family style will allow the camp community to begin and end meals together, to start a meal with a song, have more time for programming, and allow more free time for campers to enjoy one another’s company.
• Family:  the days of sitting around a table thanksgiving style at each meal and talking with one another are more and more rare, especially without digital intrusion.  Imagine the connection, joy, and memories that can come from such a time, especially regularly.
• Quality:  create the preparation, cooking space, and storage (refrigerated and not) to produce meals that have more variety, complexity, and consistency.  Proper cooking tools, such as convection ovens, commercial preparation tools, and quality holding space for prepared food, would all enhance quality as well. 
• Responsibility:  all tableware will be washed and put away by the people using it, creating a sense of community, responsibility, contribution, and appreciation for the hard work the kitchen puts in to each meal.
• Function:  it takes longer to prepare meals due to the layout of the current kitchen – where things are, the movement space, and the limited preparation space.  Also, there is no office space for the kitchen manager, no bathroom in the building, not enough refrigeration or other storage, and no proper way to dispose of grease, among numerous other challenges. 
• Staff love:  the kitchen is routinely over 90 degrees, and next to the ovens, over 100.  The space is cramped, the daily hours 20% longer than necessary, and the smoke ventilation is poor.  It is a continual and time consuming challenge to keep the kitchen space sanitary.
• Sustainability:  ongoing maintenance on a failed building (e.g., cracked and sub-grade foundation, rotten rim plate and east wall, etc.) is expensive, and a poor use of resources.  A new kitchen would have a lifespan of well over 100 years, like many properly built kitchens in legacy camps on the east coast.
• Innovation:  solar tube lighting (kitchen love!), thermal mass passive cooling for the building, solar hot water heating, instant supplemental hot water heaters, natural ground cooling, and more.

How does the challenge grant work?  For every dollar you donate, it is matched!  And, if you have a company matching program it would be THREE TIMES the donation value:  your donation + matched grant + company match!  Thank you again for your consideration in helping to make Camp Augusta even better!

Campingly yours,
Randy

Donors who make a contribution of $1500 or more can have a tile placed on the face of the building that orients toward the dining area itself.  That donation can be made:  (a) all at once, (b) over two or three years (i.e., 500 a year for three years), and/or (c) via a donation from yourself plus a company match ($750 each).  Donations may be made via the above buttons, or via checks, which carry no finance fee, so more of your donation goes toward the kitchen:  Camp Augusta, attn: Kitchen Project, 17530 Lake Vera Road, Nevada City, Ca 95959.

The actual tiles/company have not been selected yet, so if you have thoughts on what it looks like or whom to source them through, please do let me know!  (randall@campaugusta.org)   530-265-3702.  Below are some general examples, but not intended to be final.  They will likely be about 6”x8”, but perhaps longer.