When you graduate from the camping system after your senior year of high school, what do you do? This is the question that many former campers ask when they age out of the camping system and head off to college. However, the desire for camp friends and the camp setting and experience will bring several people together on Memorial Day weekend to reminisce and relax.   

Big Kids Camp at Crystal Springs United Methodist Church Campground means the camping experience continues. In 2006, Rev. Greg Lawton began Big Kids Camp as a way for campers that had aged out of the camping system could continue to gather with friends new and old to maintain the community of faith that transformed their lives. Now in its twelfth year, Big Kids Camp continues to pull together a community from across Michigan over the Memorial Day weekend each year to a time of spiritual meditation, service action, relaxation, and fun.  

The theme at Big Kids Camp this year is FaithFULL: Hunger, a theme dedicated to understanding and solving hunger. With that theme comes a service opportunity with Pokagon United Methodist Church near Dowagiac, MI. The project will involve packing backpacks for low-income and underprivileged families in that area that will go home with local children in the Dowagiac school system.  

Registration is open for those looking to share in the Big Kids Camp experience. The cost for the camp is $125, but scholarships are available for those with tighter budgets. If you have any questions, please contact Emily Blunt at [email protected] .  

Registration for Big Kids Camp and other camps for 2018 https://umcamping.org/events .

Last Updated on January 31, 2024