Campers laughing.

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The Merri-Mac Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization providing tuition assistance for children to attend Christian summer camps.

 

Established by Camp Merri-Mac staff, alumni and parents, the Foundation manages an endowment and awarded its first campership during the summer of 2022.

Our mission extends to camps in the Western North Carolina area that make a good faith effort to hire Christians for all cabin staff positions. As we receive designated gifts for qualifying programs, the Foundation will work with the camp to identify appropriate recipients.

As campers and staff members, and now as camp parents, the Foundation board counts our camp experiences as among the most formative of our lives and is excited to help other children have the same opportunities.

Please email [email protected] or give us a call at 828-669-8766 to discuss.

How Do I Give?

Click here to make a gift. Please name the camp you would like to support in the notes
field.

Or mail a check payable to “The Merri-Mac Foundation” to
The Merri-Mac Foundation
1123 Montreat Road
Black Mountain, NC, 28711

Please name the camp you would like to support in the memo line.

Gifts will only be accepted for camps in the Western North Carolina area that make a good faith effort to hire Christians for all cabin staff positions.

Why Is Summer Camp So Important?

Because developing leaders need four things:

 

1. Someone to look up to. Creativity starts by following patterns and at camp that comes through college age counselors. When a camper sees their counselors’ kindness and faith, up close, every day, summer after summer it becomes easy to map their own lives to a similar place. Ask any senior camper the most important influences in their lives and before they get to the second sentence they will begin naming their counselors. Yes, there are mentoring ministries with great leaders, but we’ve never seen anything as effective as a camp counselor with a thoughtful faith, who sleeps a few feet away from their campers and leads them in new adventures every day.

2. Someone to look out for. Children make friends at school and on teams but they become brothers and sisters when they live together at camp. Why is this so important? Because your brothers and sisters are often very different from the types of people you would choose as friends. Friends are voluntary, family is not, and we’re made to be a part of a very diverse family.

3. A mission to accomplish. Adventure is practice. Adventure builds muscle memory by helping us become comfortable with discomfort and risk. At camp adventure might be as simple as swimming in a lake or as robust as a multi-day mountaineering adventure.

4. The opportunity to overcome adversity. It is impossible for parents to not take every opportunity to clear the path for their children. This has always been the case but something very important has changed. Technology now allows parents to remain tethered to their children continuously. This makes our children physically safer and emotionally fragile. A great camp experience is one of the last places a young person has the opportunity to overcome adversity by themselves and that builds the resilience needed to live out their faith. We are not asking you to give because you love camp, we’re asking you to give because you love campers and want to invest in future leaders.

How Does The Foundation Choose Recipients?

We consider three factors in determining who to award camperships to

1. Demonstrated financial need.

2. Likelihood of success as a camper. There are a lot of factors that make a child more likely to succeed as a camper including

  • Past history at camp
  • Guardian’s past camp experience
  • The camper’s desire and readiness to attend

3. Recommendations from trusted sources, including Boys & Girls Clubs, teachers, youth leaders, current and past camp families, etc.

Click here to make a gift. Please name the camp you would like to support in the notes
field.

Or mail a check payable to “The Merri-Mac Foundation” to
The Merri-Mac Foundation
1123 Montreat Road
Black Mountain, NC, 28711

Please name the camp you would like to support in the memo line.

Gifts will only be accepted for camps in the Western North Carolina area that make a good faith effort to hire Christians for all cabin staff.