By Shannon McMahon
By the end of this summer, the campers at Big Brothers/Big Sisters’ Camp Oty’Okwa will be able to build character, create friendships and unleash their youthful energy in a new facility.
With funding and construction support from the Upper Arlington Tri-Village Rotary Club, the camp plans to raise a new activity barn for year-round use. The project is set to begin in late spring and be completed in July.
“We’ve always been looking for something we could grab our hands around,” says Jim Edwards, a 25-year Rotarian and current chairman of the club’s Rotary Club Long Range Planning Committee.
The club is a service organization uniting volunteers from Upper Arlington, Grandview and Marble Cliff. Guided by their motto, “Service Above Self,” members donate time and money to local, national and international community service projects.
Tri-Village Rotary has a 14-year history of supporting worthy ventures, including the First Community Church’s house-building efforts in Mexico, tutoring at Stevenson Elementary School and “Adopt-a-Highway” on State Route 315. The projects they support represent their interests and values, Edwards says, and this time they were ready for something bigger.
“We talked to the membership to figure out what they wanted (to support), and the underlying theme was children,” he says.
The activity barn is the first project of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters Capital Improvements Campaign, which will add a dining hall, shower and cabin renovations to its project list in the fall.
“This is a totally new barn on the camp. When you’re working with hundreds of kids, having indoor space is critical,” says Dave Schirner, camp director and executive vice president of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central Ohio.
Located in Hocking County, Camp Oty’Okwa is one of only two Big Brothers/Big Sisters camps in the nation (the other is near Los Angeles). While it incorporates the classic activities associated with summer camp, it has an additional focus on social development and environmental education.
“We operate a camp not to just teach kids how to water ski or build a fire,” Schirner says. “We are interested in the social aspects of working with kids, like how to get along in a group or gain self esteem.”
Camp Oty’Okwa hosts 1,000-plus kids for its annual summer camp, as well as workshops and weekend camps in the fall, winter and spring months.
Meeting with Schirner confirmed the Rotarians’ collective interests in helping Central Ohio children and the sizable activity barn project, and they quickly formed many connections.
“Everything fell together,” Edwards says. “We had members who got excited about having hands-on experience with mentoring, people who wanted to get their hands dirty and help construct, and others who could talk to people to raise funds.”
When completed, the barn will measure 40-feet square and 28 feet high. It will contain an indoor climbing wall for instructional climbing with the campers. The wall will also be used to teach vital cooperation, team building and character education skills, as kids can climb in tandem. A covered porch and outdoor fire pit are also in the plans.
Both Schirner and Edwards express optimism about the project and possible future endeavors. Schirner would like to install a high ropes challenge in the upper loft area, and Edwards hopes the team-building exercises can be enjoyed by latchkey and classroom programs in the tri-village area.
The project has been a positive learning experience for the UA Tri-Village Rotary, Edwards says.
“This project has helped open our minds to something bigger,” he says. “Anything’s possible if you just think big enough.”
Shannon McMahon is a contributing writer for Upper Arlington Magazine.