REACH OUTDOORS: DRAGONS AT CEDAR LAKE

The rental season is underway!  A live action role playing (LARP) group who have been camp renters for the past few years were the first group this season.  After all of the hard work the volunteers have put in this spring to get the facility ready the Alliance LARP was very impressed by the upgrades that have occurred since last fall.  After the LARPers left the camp was quickly filled up by the Lake Orion High School AP Biology class for three day and 2 night stay.
Over the past four years the students from Mr. Tim Polonkey’s AP Biology class, at Lake Orion High School, have been coming to the Cedar Lake Outdoor Center to take a little vacation after their final AP Biology test as seniors and put in some much appreciated service learning volunteer work to help with some various tasks around the camp. This year was the biggest group of students yet with 80 young men and women.

The students arrive at camp on Sunday and leave on Tuesday. They help with various clean-up and maintenance task around the facility including everything from mopping the floors of the lodge to restringing the fishing poles that the campers use while at camp. The students also bring their own activities to do like playing soccer in the big field in front of the lodge and telling stories around the camp fire.
The trip to camp is not all work for the students; they are there to do some relaxing after all. The students were able to make use of the camps canoes and kayaks and archery range. The students also had an opportunity on Monday afternoon to shoot .22 rifles on the camps range while being supervised by myself and my assistant camp director, Tyler. Many of the students had never had the chance to shoot a “real” firearm before and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to have the chance to do it at camp.
I would personally like to thank Tim and all of the Lake Orion Students that came out to help at the camp. I would also like to thank the parents and family members that came along with the students to camp to also volunteer their time and help any way they could. Many of these maintenance and cleanup tasks would not be accomplished without all of your help.
With all of the efforts going into getting the facility ready it is good to have some groups down enjoying the good weather the last couple weeks at Cedar Lake.  Camp is less than a month away and our programs are almost full but there are still a few spots left open to get kids signed.  We are also still looking for Riley Scholarship applicants to get as many kids as possible outdoors. http://www.scinovi.com/rwyc_application.html