Another year has come and gone, and the Tuck Shop is still one of the favourite places at camp for everyone! Most of you know that we added an online Tuck Shop late last year, and so 2018 was the first year that we had the joy of figuring out online sales. While not the main priority for us at camp (Jesus always comes first!), it has been a big joy for us to ship out a Beacon hoodie or water bottle just in time for someone’s birthday!

During the work day last weekend, we moved all the extra chocolate bars and pop into the Dining Hall for the winter (see you at the Family Day Festival! :P), but that doesn’t mean we don’t have fond memories of things that happened in 2018:

Chocolate is Still King: Despite the fact that the Tuck Shop went nut-free this year, chocolate bars are still the top seller in the camp store. In 2018, we sold over 1,600 chocolate bars over the summer, which beats out every single item available (except for 10 cent candy, which doesn’t really count, if you ask Kodiak!).

Registration T-Shirts were a Hit: This year was the first time we introduced registration t-shirts, which had the summer theme printed on them. Over half the campers who came to Beacon this summer purchased a t-shirt, and it was pretty great to see staff and campers running around camp all summer with matching swag/gear/whatever the cool word is these days. We’re thinking we might run a contest next year for the design! (Also, if you didn’t grab a t-shirt, we have a few left… you can buy one at the bottom of this blog post.)

The Bigger, The Better: We bought a bigger type of coffee mug in 2018, and that turns out to be be a popular choice! The jury is still out about whether the chocolate brown or sand colour is the favourite colour (Kodiak is #TeamSand), but either way, lots of people need coffee when they’re at camp… who knew?

New Fridge, Who Dis?: We were really excited to have a new, glass-doored fridge in the Tuck Shop this year. It helped us save on energy, especially because campers didn’t have to open and close the door all summer to figure out what was available!

Speaking of Cool: A big thank you to Danny “Timon” Olthof for donating an air conditioning unit to the camp store in 2018. We had a couple of absolute scorchers this summer, and nobody likes melted chocolate. We not 100% sure, but we think there might have been a couple of staff members planning to sleep in the newly air conditioned store during a July heat wave…

For 2019, we’re already starting to look at fun new clothing items and souvenirs to add to the camp store, and we’re always looking for input! We’re also toying with a good way to let parents order online during the spring/summer and allow the items to be delivered to their camper while they’re at camp (parents who drop off their camper at camp love getting to help them try on clothing and we’d love to be able to offer a similar service for those who put their camper on the bus).

If you have any ideas for the Tuck Shop, we’d love to hear from you! Connect with Splenda in the office by email at office@beaconbiblecamp.com. Don’t forget to grab one of the 2018 Registration T-shirts if you haven’t already. Once they’re gone, they’re gone!