2020: Year in Review

Dear Wanakee Friends,

Planning for summer 2020 started as usual - reflection and evaluation from staff and volunteers in late summer, kickstart of committee work in early autumn, program design, volunteer recruitment, budgeting, hiring summer staff, opening summer camp registration, scheduling church visits.

Wanakee’s Board of Directors held a retreat in November 2019, in part, to map out our preferred future for Wanakee. We chose to look five years ahead: to 2024 - a reasonable amount of time to make progress on things we felt were important. We started off by listing everything we could dream of from all areas of camp life (facilities, staffing, health and wellness, and many others). Here are a few of those items:

800 campers over an 8 week program (side note; we have only achieved more than 90 campers in a single week a handful of times in the past decade)
A new retreat center to replace our Rec Hall
Keeping family-style meals in the Dining Hall
Serving more fruit (yes, we went down even to these details)
Hiring a mental health worker for the summer
Increasing summer staff salaries
New truck and tractor (we got those this year!)
Increased financial self-sustainability

We intended to circle back to this wish list of 53 items in the springtime and decide which ones would become actual goals, which things were 2020 priorities and which ones would be deferred or deleted. Then came the first wave of COVID-19. Instead of looking ahead to 2024, we focused on what we could do in the here and now to live out our mission - first by creating Wanakee From Home so we could connect with our community, then by creating Camp@Home so that our small summer staff could foster relationships and bring some of that magic of Wanakee’s love and acceptance to campers in summertime.

The 2020 summer staff preparing for a livestream of Celebration from the Outdoor Chapel.

Thanks to an overwhelming level of generosity from our volunteers and donors, we were able to run these programs and employ nine young adult leaders without worrying about whether or not we would be able to make it through to 2021. Our dreams of a new retreat center have been deferred and instead we’ve invested in making the Rec Hall more comfortable and safer. We don’t know if family-style meals will be possible or practical when we welcome campers back on site. We’ll have to assess the remaining 51 items on our 2024 wish list and add more, given what we know now.

We are now in our 60th year of ministry and although we are still living in a time when tomorrow very likely will bring different challenges than today, we will continue planning for Wanakee’s future.

We write to ask you to support our ministry with an end-of-year gift so we can continue to live out our mission in 2021, 2024, and our next 60 years. We hope you know how meaningful every donation is, no matter the size, for a small organization like this one. Thank you for everything you do to sustain this beautiful spiritual place in the hills, and we look forward to welcoming you home to Wanakee as soon as we can.

We wish you peace, health, and hope in this Christmas season.

Grace and Peace,

Nicole Richards, Board Chair, May 2017 - Nov. 2020

Kevin Drew, Board Chair, elected Nov. 2020

James B. Tresner, Executive Director

2020 by the Numbers

277: number of “campers” who attended Wanakee From Home events during “Season 1,” our pop-up virtual programming which ran March-June 2020
21: volunteers who led Wanakee From Home programs during those same months
59: number of years of operation (celebrating 60 in 2021!)
33: years since we purchased our last tractor, and the Horsepower of Wanakee’s new (to us) Kubota tractor, purchased this fall
38: number of campers attending weeklong Camp @ Home virtual programs offered during summer 2020
4,171: minutes of Thursday Night worship livestreams viewed by the global Wanakee community during the summer
9: number of staff employed in-person at camp this summer
216: railing balusters installed by volunteers as part of improvements made to the Rec Hall, along with 5 new vinyl windows, 16 bundles of shingles, 11 gallons of paint, and more
873: unique listens to one of 12episodes of Big Red Farmhouse, Wanakee’s new storytelling podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
360: gallons of free hand sanitizer distributed by Wanakee to New Hampshire churches, non-profits, and schools to help keep our communities safe
260: unique donors in 2020 (so far), 35% more than November 2019

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES: Wanakee could not exist without our volunteers, and are always looking for help with day-to-day needs during all seasons, as well as summer camp counselors & event directors, or year-round committee members. Your time makes a difference at Wanakee! Please contact James or any member of the Board if you are interested in helping for the first time or in a new way.

GIVING OPPORTUNITIES: A gift to Wanakee changes lives immediately. It also ensures that future generations will get to experience our “beautiful spiritual place in the hills.”

The tractor purchased in 2020 thanks to Friends of Wanakee.

Annual Fund: Donations to the annual fund provide flexibility for use wherever there is the greatest need.
Memorial Funds: We are grateful to the Darling family for establishing the new Wes and Edie Darling Memorial Fund at the United Methodist Foundation of New England. If you are interested in learning more about contributing to one or more of our funds, please contact us: mail@wanakee.org
Friends of Wanakee: Gifts to Friends of Wanakee support capital, facility, and programmatic improvements. In 2020, some of the projects that were partially or fully funded by Friends of Wanakee include materials for the Rec Hall improvements for safety and comfort, replacement of our tractor and truck, and proactive tree removal for safety and to reduce the risks of building damage.
Camperships: Donations to the Campership Fund ensure that finances never stop a child from having a camp experience, regardless of family situation. Since 2016, requests for Camperships have almost tripled.
Special projects: Would you like to connect with the Executive Director about supporting a capital project, including Wanakee in your estate plan, supporting our endowments, or other giving possibilities? Please be in touch!

EVENTS: Please keep an eye on this website and our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/wanakeenh)

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” — Proverbs 16:9