Mood:
brightTopic: Sale of Scout Camps
July 22, 2006
Chicago Tribune - Letters To The Editor
This is regarding "Greetings from Camp Not-gonna-open-again; As summer camps in the Chicago region dwindle, the ones remaining debate whether to stay open or sell out to real estate developers" (Page 1, July 9). The article accurately described the pressures that have increasingly caused camps to vanish under developers’ bulldozers.
A lasting solution that could serve as a model for communities around the nation is being explored right here in the Chicago region.
The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation is working with a number of Chicago-area partners to demonstrate practical choices beyond keep the camp and keep losing money running it, or retire our debts with a big check from a developer.
The ongoing loss of camp lands to development both reflects and reinforces unwelcome trends: "mouse-potato" childhoods, which create the conditions for obesity and other health issues; open space being
lost; and respected non-profit organizations such as the Girl Scouts of America finding it harder to serve urban and suburban communities.
It also represents lost opportunities to preserve natural areas: Summer camps typically involve intensive use of only a small fraction of the total camp acreage, and the buffer or light-use areas often include examples of rare natural communities, such as wetlands, oak savanna or prairie.
Several key reasons for this unfortunate trend were described in the article, including sprawling development pressure driving up land prices; competition from today’s subject-specific camps (music, sports, etc.); and changes in parents’ willingness to send their children to overnight summer camp. Working with conservation groups such as the Conservation Foundation and CorLands, and discussing the issue with non-profit camp owners, we’ve identified two additional challenges:
1. Lack of understanding of the options. Camp owners have not been aware of the full range of choices available to them as landowners.
2. A need to update camp activities with strong nature programs that can help today’s parents see new educational value in the outdoor camp experience.
On the first point we are now working to get the word out to camp owners that land ownership is not an all-or-nothing matter. For example, in Illinois and most other Midwestern states, landowners can
voluntarily "dedicate" land as nature preserves monitored by the state. A different option, one not involving any governmental entity, is to grant a conservation easement, which can be tailored to uses of the specific land in question.
The volunteer directors of non-profit camp owners take their fiduciary duties deeply to heart, and quite properly aren’t interested in allowing their organizations to bleed to death operating camps that run chronic deficits. Anxiety about that outcome can overwhelm concern about broader responsibilities, such as developing in young folk an appreciation for natural systems in a world waking up to inconvenient truths, saving the few remaining large parcels of open space for the public good and preserving safe havens for native plants and animals.
Fortunately better choices exist.
Judith Stockdale
Executive director
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Chicago
