We’re excited to announce that we’re tweaking the ages for two of our summer sessions next year: Starting in 2020, Basecamp and Wilderness will be available to campers who are 15, 16 and 17 years old. Cornerstone (formerly Alpha) will be now starting for campers the year they are turning 18 years old, with a higher end cap of 29 years old (for now - more on that later).

Why the change? Over the last few years, we’ve been watching as young people have to leave Basecamp and Wilderness earlier than they want to: a common phrase on our feedback surveys for those camp sessions is “I wish I could stay for one more year!” (followed closely by “I wish I could stay forever”). Fair enough: we hear you on that. If a camper attends Basecamp one year, and then Wilderness the next year, they’ve already run out of years to attend one of those camp sessions again. By making this change, we’re offering a chance to something you love one last time.

The other side of the coin is that we’ve had to keep our Cornerstone age group fairly restricted because of the age group (previously 17-25 years old, then dropped to 17-21 years old). Feedback from campers and parents was clear that there was an awkwardness sending a high school student to camp with someone who might already be buying their first house or starting their master’s program. We tried to help this by dropping the age a few years ago, but honestly, it was the wrong decision. Campers who LOVE being at Beacon were now “ageing out” of the camp programs much earlier, and they weren’t happy about it (a big shout-out to Elie Gharib, who has been advocating for “more camp!” for a number of years now).

In most other respects, camp sessions will be staying the same. Basecamp and Wilderness will be happening during the same week next year. We’re still going to run the same great programs. In a cool twist, Cornerstone will reflect the ethos of another former camp session that disappeared a few years ago: Omega. We’ll still have cabin mentors available to help lead programs and sessions, and we’ll still expect our young adult campers to follow camp guidelines (cough cell phone rule cough). At the same time, having adults at camp provides us with the opportunity to try some new fun things as well (surprise, surprise, Kodiak is making you wait until later to find out more!).

We’re not 100% sure if 29 years old is the right upper maximum for Cornerstone. Is it possible that the week of camp becomes a “adult week” with no upper limit? Definitely. At the same time, we feel strongly that it’s not a camp where we can start welcoming families, etc., so for now, 29 is a pretty solid number that gives us time to explore how the change might happen.

What are your thoughts? We’re excited to see what God does with these changes. Swifty, Snappy, Pippen and Papillon are all on board for the Basecamp/Wilderness side, and Steve. Becky and Emily can’t wait for Cornerstone to see this change either!

Comment below or email the camp office if you have more questions!