Tag Archives: summer camp

55th Annual – LUM Camp 2019 – Best Ever!

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LUM Campers “Gear Up!” for the Future

Last week, local children from low-income families participated in the 55th annual LUM Camp. LUM Camp is an overnight summer camp for 84 boys and girls (8, 9 and 10 years old), who come from families served by Lafayette Urban Ministry. Our camp includes all the traditional activities that a great camp should have, such as morning chapel, horseback riding, swimming, hiking, boating, a climbing wall, arts & crafts, campfires, a zip-line and an outstanding LUM Camp staff.

Along with all of these activities, LUM Camp focuses on interactive and experiential learning. Our theme this year was GEAR Up! GEAR stands for Great Education Activates Readiness, and our campers engaged in lots of interactive, hands-on experiential learning. They learned about careers in archaeology, coding, cyber security, chemistry, and engineering; and blasted off their own rockets, ran through a maker space relay, and even took home their own coding program.

LUM Camp – Board Night – Ice Cream Social

On July 31, our LUM friends & board members traveled in the LUM bus out to Hanging Rock Assembly Camp in Warren County to experience an evening at LUM Camp.

When our LUM friends & board members arrived they met the campers and sang camp songs. They were then treated to an authentic camp supper followed by an ice cream social, which included ice cream sundaes with all the fixin’s. Our guests scooped and served the ice cream to our campers giving them more time to interact. The highlight of Board Night for the campers, as well as our guests, was the laser light show. You could tell that our guests enjoyed camp life for a few hours and our campers enjoyed having visitors.

Thank you to everyone who helped make LUM Camp 2019 possible. Through your donations, campership gifts, and volunteer time, you have once again made it possible for our LUM Campers to have a positive, life-changing experience that they will remember fondly for the rest of their lives.

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Be a LUM Camp Counselor – Make A Difference

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Be a volunteer LUM Camp counselor and join Marlena Edmondson, former youth camper & 2019 program director, and Joe Micon, camp director, who is leading his 40th consecutive LUM Camp this year. Be a part of something epic.

Volunteer camp counselors must be 18 years old, enjoy working with children and be able to spend the entire week at camp. Counselors are needed from 11 a.m. Monday, July 29 to 4 p.m. Friday, August 2. Join Marlena & Joe and make this the year YOU make a difference in the lives of local children.

Three Ways YOU can help LUM Camp are as follows:

  • Make a Monetary Donation, click HERE
  • Sign up to Volunteer, click HERE
  • Sponsor a Camper, click HERE

If you’re interested or need more information, click HERE — or email or call Marlena Edmondson (medmondson@lumserve.org| 765-423-2691).

Be a LUM Camp Counselor – Make A Difference

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Be a volunteer LUM Camp counselor and join Marlena Edmondson, former youth camper & 2019 program director, and Joe Micon, camp director, who is leading his 40th consecutive LUM Camp this year. Be a part of something epic.

Volunteer camp counselors must be 18 years old, enjoy working with children and be able to spend the entire week at camp. Counselors are needed from 11 a.m. Monday, July 29 to 4 p.m. Friday, August 2. Join Marlena & Joe and make this the year YOU make a difference in the lives of local children.

To apply or find out more information, click HERE.

LUM Camp 2019 – Sponsor a Local Child ($150)

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“Gear Up” & Give the Gift of Summer Camp

LUM Camp is a week-long, overnight, scholarship-based camp for 8, 9, and 10 year old boys and girls whose parents have received services from LUM in the past year and who are not able to afford the $150 per child cost of camp. 

Would you please consider sharing a gift of $150 to give a child this marvelous opportunity?

Your campership will pay for a child’s transportation, room and board, camp activities, books, supplies, and all of our career and vocational programs, in other words everything a camper will need to attend this year’s LUM Camp. 

  • Sending $300 will allow two children to attend LUM Camp
  • Sending $450 will provide three camperships
  • $75 will provide half a campership

LUM Camp is one of the finest overnight summer camp programs available to children anywhere. I know of nearly 100 children waiting anxiously to attend. Please, won’t you offer them the gift of LUM Camp?

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LUM Camp

LUM Camp 2019 – Sponsor a Local Child ($150)

Lafayette Urban Ministry, LUM, LUM Camp, ,
“Gear Up” & Give the Gift of Summer Camp

LUM Camp is a week-long, overnight, scholarship-based camp for 8, 9, and 10 year old boys and girls whose parents have received services from LUM in the past year and who are not able to afford the $150 per child cost of camp. 

Would you please consider sharing a gift of $150 to give a local child this marvelous opportunity?

Your campership will pay for a child’s transportation, room and board, camp activities, books, supplies, and all of our career and vocational programs, in other words everything a camper will need to attend this year’s LUM Camp. 

  • Sending $300 will allow two children to attend LUM Camp
  • Sending $450 will provide three camperships
  • $75 will provide half a campership

LUM Camp is one of the finest overnight summer camp programs available to children anywhere. I know of nearly 100 children waiting anxiously to attend. Please, won’t you offer them the gift of LUM Camp?

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LUM Camp

Be a LUM Camp Counselor – Make A Difference

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Would you, or someone you know, make a good LUM Camp Counselor?

LUM Camp is a week-long, over-night camp program for low-income children from 8 to 10 years old. Volunteer camp counselors must be 18 years old, enjoy working with children and be able to spend the entire week at camp. Counselors are needed from 11 a.m. Monday, July 29 to 4 p.m. Friday, August 2. 

Join Joe Micon, LUM Camp director, in his 40th year at camp, and make this the year YOU make a difference in the lives of local children.

To learn more about becoming a LUM Volunteer Camp Counselor, click HERE.

LUM Campfire Stories from Joe Micon

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“LUM Camp provides the tools children need to navigate the challenges of growing up,” Joe Micon says. “Camp is such a fun and supportive place. Campers make new friends, experience new activities and are exposed to a world of possibility. As the week progresses, you can literally see each child grow in confidence.”

Here are a few stories he recently shared with Joan Low, LUM Board President:

  • One year Joe heard the Olympic torch was passing through Indiana. He moved heaven & earth to arrange for the torch to come to LUM Camp. Each camper got to lift the torch high over their head and feel like a real Olympian!
  • Another year, LUM Camp became Ag Camp, and Joe arranged for tractors, implements, and all manner of farm animals to visit. Each camper got to gaze down from the seat of a giant combine that was as big as a house. Pictured above.
  • The year that LUM Camp focused on aviation and the science of flight, each camper got to fly in an airplane, see their house and school from the air, and experience our community from a fresh new perspective. Somehow, Joe even convinced the LUM Board that flying in a plane was actually safer than driving in a car.
  • One former LUM camper played the snare drum in the President’s Old Guard Fife & Drum Corp after being exposed to the snare at LUM Camp. Joe remembers watching him march & perform on TV during President Bill Clinton’s Inaugural Parade.

Every morning the children are beckoned from their beds by the sights and sounds of the forest and the experience of chapel around a campfire. At chapel they learn love of neighbor and respect for creation. They hear scripture stories about God’s love for them and justice for all his children. After breakfast they have a full day of hiking, riding horses, boating, swimming, entertainment, and art. LUM Camp is known for its great food, outstanding facilities, experienced staff & counselors, and all the singing, skits, and activities to form fond memories of fun, learning, and challenge.
We hope that this year you will give, not only for our campers, but also in honor of Joe’s 40 years of service to them. Over four decades, Joe has touched the lives of 4,000 at-risk children. Please, won’t you give a local child the gift of LUM Camp?

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LUM Camp

Joe Micon – Director of LUM Camp for 40 Years

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Reflections from Joan Low, LUM Board President

This year will mark Joe Micon’s 40th year at LUM Camp. That’s right, our LUM Camp Director has been at it for four decades! So what keeps a grown man coming back to summer camp for so long? It’s the campers, of course. For these many years Joe has put heart, might, talent, and soul into planning, hiring staff, and leading the most inspiring experiences the campers have ever encountered.

Joe has inspired young imaginations through exciting activities in areas such as biology, engineering, sports, farming, space exploration, math and many more. Campers gain new visions for their future and more tools for realizing those visions. If you ask him, Joe will tell you that his time spent with LUM campers and creating experiences for them has done more to change the world than anything else he has accomplished.

Over Joe’s 40 years at camp he has watched with delight as LUM Campers have grown up, entered college, and gone on to exciting careers. In our community there are social workers, nurses, and teachers who enthusiastically share fond memories of attending a LUM Camp directed by Joe Micon. One LUM Camper even went on to become an accomplished NFL wide receiver, and another is LUM’s current CPA.  

I’m sure you realize that Lafayette Urban Ministry is so much more than a social safety net. It is a ministry with a vision for a community where children, regardless of the circumstances into which they are born, can grow up to be valuable contributors in whatever walk of life they choose. And no single person drives this vision toward realization more forcefully than Executive Director Joe Micon!  

I hope that this year you will give, not only for our campers, but also in honor of Joe’s 40 years of service to them. Over four decades, Joe has touched the lives of 4,000 at-risk children. I can think of nothing he would appreciate more. I think you can see that LUM Camp is one of the finest overnight summercamp programs available to children anywhere. It will take place during the week of July 29 at beautiful Hanging Rock Camp in Warren County. I know of nearly 100 children waiting anxiously to attend. Please, won’t you offer them the gift of LUM Camp?

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LUM Camp

Be a Volunteer Camp Counselor – LUM Camp 2019

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Make a Difference This Summer at LUM Camp

Would you, or someone you know, make a good LUM Camp Counselor?
LUM Camp is a week-long, over-night camp program for low-income children from 8 to 10 years old. Volunteer camp counselors must be 18 years old, enjoy working with children and be able to spend the entire week at camp. Counselors are needed from 11 a.m. Monday, July 29 to 4 p.m. Friday, August 2. Make this the year you make a difference in the lives of local children. Please share with others who may be interested.

For more information, click HERE.

LUM Summer Program in Review – 2018

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|  Educate  |  Shelter  |  Serve  |  Assist  |  Nourish  |

This summer at Lafayette Urban Ministry, the staff was busy educating, sheltering serving, assisting, nourishing and strengthening families in our community. Through the various programs LUM served 1,703 families and 128 children. Here are some interesting milestones and statistics from another successful summer at Lafayette Urban Ministry.

LUM Programs – Summer Statistics
LUM Summer Milestones
  • LUM Promotional Video – premiered in June and is currently being used…MORE.
  • Immigration Clinic client, Luis Urbano, became a US Citizen (pictured above)…MORE
  • Eileen Weiss becomes the new LUM Business Manager…MORE
  • Susan Brouillette ordained & is new LUM Chaplain…MORE
  • 5th Quarter Summer Learning Program students engage in garden project (pictured below)…MORE

Now that the summer at LUM is over — the staff are busy with fall programs such as the After School Program and in planning for upcoming events — Hunger Hike, HH5K Run, Port of Hope, Turkey Trot 5K Run & the Community Thanksgiving Celebration.

Thank you to all who invested financially and by volunteering in our summer at LUM. We count on YOU to volunteer and make a donation which enables LUM to continue serving the families and children in our community.

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