A Collaboration between the synod Office for Children, Youth & Family, the Lutheran Camping Corporation, and Conferences
What if we could give children an immersive faith formative ‘camp-like’ experience in the midst of Christ-centered community where the Spirit is palpable, at a more affordable and accessible price point for many families? We are embarking on a new collaboration and you are invited! The synod Office for Children, Youth & Family (Office for CYFM) and the Lutheran Camping Corporation (LCC) are looking to partner with conferences to offer week-long Day Camps throughout the summer, for children in grades Kindergarten – 5th grade. We are asking our 13 conferences to consider working cooperatively to identify a host congregation within their conference, willing to house the week-long day camp. LCC would provide the counselors or day camp staff and all programming for the week. The Office for CYFM would offer assistance coordinating the camp and a grant to help offset the cost for daily lunches.
Click here to download the Conference Day Camp Flyer, describing the details of this proposed collaboration, and offering answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ’s). To borrow the old expression, ‘we are building this plane while flying it’, so we are asking for your patience as we know each setting will be slightly different, but we are open and willing to work with conference partners to pilot a few of these day camps in the summer of 2026!
To offer just a few more specifics in an effort to entice you to download the flyer and explore this opportunity more deeply, we have a model for the day camp that has been offered at St. Matthew Lutheran in York these past three or four summers, that will serve as one of our 2026 pilot sites. Staff from Camp Nawakwa (usually 3-4 counselors) depending upon the number of participants, provide the daily programming. Volunteers from the congregation or the conference help with daily check-in and lunch prep and service, taking time to sit and eat with the children and camp staff. In this case, St Matthew, or from your conference potentially, also recruit and provide a host family/home where the counselors can stay throughout the week. We also ask conferences to identify families to provide the camp staff with an evening meal each night of the week. In the case of conferences who work cooperatively to host one of these camps, participating congregations who send children could recruit volunteers to take the camp staff to dinner and to assist in finding a host family/home to accommodate them for the week, or to find a host congregation that could house them at night, assuming they have the right facilities for sleeping and bathing/self-care. In other words, the congregation that hosts the day camp itself, would not necessarily have to provide the site to host the camp staff, but conferences could share in providing hospitality for that team of young adults.
Another option for conference congregations wishing to participate in hosting a day camp, would be to provide some financial assistance to families interested in sending their child(ren), or to provide gift cards for evening meals for camp counselors staffing the day camps. The cost for families who wish to send their child for the five-day camp is $155.00, or about 1/4 the cost of a week of residential camp at one of our LCC sites. This is a great way to introduce children and families to the notion of ‘going to camp’ at some point in the future. One option for the week is to devote one day of the camp to a visit to one of our camp properties. For example, the day camp at St. Matthew, loads up their church van and takes participants to Camp Nawakwa for the day on Friday. This gives the participants a chance to experience camp, and to explore whether a full week at camp is something they’d like to try during a future summer. The potential exists to visit either Nawakwa, Kirchenwald, or the Wittel Farm Growing Project, as an option for a day trip.
Congregations from York Conference are invited to contact Stephanie Johnson at St. Matthew, at sjohnson@stmatt.org, if they are interested in sending children to the day camp offered by St Matthew, this summer. The dates are June 22-26, 2026.
There are as many as three conferences currently exploring this opportunity for summer 2026. Watch this site, our electronic newsletters, and our social media for updates. If your conference is open to hosting one of these camps, contact Charlie Roberts at croberts@lss-elca.org, and Kelsey Tomlinson at ktomlinson@lutherancamping.org. Since there are limited camp staff teams available, the weeks available to offer these day camps will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
Again, for a more complete review of this proposed collaboration and to review some FAQ’s, download the Conference Day Camp Flyer.
