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Each year The United Methodist Churches of Indiana support campers by underwriting about $370,000 of Impact 2818's budget! They do this because life-changing experiences are a priority in the discipleship pathway for children, youth, and leadership development.

Running a church costs money, and camp operates just like a church. Stewardship is key, and camp staff do everything we can with the minimal amount of resources necessary to make quality and effective ministry happen.

Impact 2818 provided over $69,000 in scholarship dollars in 2023.
Our partnering churches provided over $141,000 in tuition assistance to campers.
If your church is looking to join in with getting campers to camp, fundraising is an essential part of that.

Check out these great fundraising ideas that churches have shared with us in the tab below!

Mystery Dinner:

Mystery dinners are great fun and can easily be adapted to fit a variety of themes from Valentine’s Day to April Fool’s day. Create a menu with 18-20 items. Use items like: main dish, green salad, fork, knife, spoon, toothpick, water, apple wedges, dessert, coffee, cheese cubes, pretzel, sparkling cider, carrot sticks, olive, pickle, etc.

Come up with a theme and then make up silly names for each item on your list. Use code names like “Brazilian Delight” – coffee, “Tuning Tool”– fork,”Eve’s Temptation” – Apple, “Son of Noah” – Ham, etc.

Print a menu that lists code name on the top half, then on the bottom you list 4 courses and 4-5 blank lines after each course. Guests simply sit down at a beautiful table, with no plates, cups, utensils…nothing but the menu. Have them fill in the blanks with the code-named foods for each of the courses.

The student servers collect the menus and fill the orders in the kitchen and bringing each person what they ordered for the first course. Then serve each course exactly as it is ordered, even if the course on is an olive, a toothpick, chocolate pie and a carrot, without any silverware. Continue until each course has been served.

Create a Calendar:

Make it specific to your church or youth group or town and sell them. Have kids help with photography, design, etc. Check out Snapfish, Shutterfly, or Walmart.

Sell a Shirt:

Have artistic students design a T-shirt, magnets or stickers and have them printed. Sell them to the youth group or in the community.

Partnership Products:

Check out Woven Joy, FreeSet and other organizations that provide opportunities for women in third world countries. They can provide merchandise (bags, clothing, jewelry, etc.) that keeps them in safe and meaningful jobs. Not only do you raise money but you are providing an income for women with a need.

Job Auction:

Dinner in a Basket Night:

Have students create a meal and have families in the church bid on the basket. This is a great way to get people in the church to meet your youth.

Basketball Tournament:

Sell Coffee:

Check out http://www.equalexchange.coop/umcor for fairtrade coffee. Sell the coffee by the bag or by the cup on Sunday mornings.

Silent Auction:

Have a Silent Auction for the community. Get local business to donate items and have people bid on them.

Car Wash:

Location is key! Get local business sponsors and hand out flyers in the community advertising a FREE Car wash sponsored by the local businesses. Check with your local Wal-Mart because sometimes they will make a donation. Try it as a Wash-A-Thon and have your kids get sponsors to pay a certain amount of money per car washed. Double this up and sell Port-A-Pit Chicken at the same time.

Dinners:

Try something as normal as a spaghetti or a chili dinner or mix things up a little and do a themed or murder mystery dinner. Open it to the church or even the community. Charge a per-plate fee or ask for donations.

Chill Supper, Fish Fry, Pancake Breakfast

• Talk with local businesses or congregation members to see if you can get supplies donated for the event.
• Have students that have attended the camp volunteer for the event.
• At each table, have campers from your congregation put a picture of themselves at camp and on the back of the card, write down how camp impacted their life.
• Along with a cost/person, be sure to offer places for individuals to contribute love offerings. Next to camper pictures on the tables is great!

Rummage Sale:

Ask your church to donate items, or rent tables to the community at your location.

Craft/Bake Sale:

Book Sale:

Have people in the church donate unwanted books and have a Book Sale.

Restaurant Partnerships:

Contact local restaurants that run partnerships (like Hacienda and Ritter’s). They provide a portion of the proceeds for the nights sales to your group from diners who bring in a ticket that they’re eating there to support you.

Soup Cook-Off:

• Invite the congregation to sign-up their soup for a cook-off.
• Each participant must prepare a certain amount
• Provide a half table for each participant. Let them decorate their table and ask them to create a poster sign to hang in front.
• Provide bread, soft drinks and dessert
• Guests pay an entrance fee and are given a sheet of paper that lists each booth by number and the name of the soup.
• Guests sample soups and vote for the favorite.
• See if you can get a trophy to be donated for the winner!

Gift Basket Sales:

• Invite the congregation or local businesses to donate items for gift baskets.
• Make the baskets for various seasons, such as a Christmas basket, Easter basket, etc
• Sell them for a set amount, or auction them off

Pack a Bag for Camp:

• Pass out Ziploc baggies to everyone during Sunday service
• In the baggies, include a devotional prayer book tailored to camp, and a camp themed trinket
• Ask members to carry the trinket with them for a month (this could be a small wooden cross, a glass pebble, etc) Every time they see or hold the trinket, ask them to pray for the students from your church that will be going to camp
• Ask members to commit to filling the bag with their spare change for a month
• Have members turn the bags in on Camp Sunday. For best return, seek out a donor in your church to match the funds!

Celebration Parties:

• Set a date and encourage families to register by this deadline.
• Tell families that everyone who registers by this time is invited to attend an ice cream party in April.
• At the party, show a camp video, enjoy fellowship, pray for the campers, and give parents an opportunity to brainstorm ideas about sending mail to their kids at camp! (put together a gift box for your campers to share with their cabin; have each parent write a letter to each camper, etc)

Send a Kid to Camp Tree:

• Similar to the Angel Tree, decorate a tree (any tree will do, palm trees are great for the Easter season) and hang iCash cards with various amounts
• Invite members to take an iCash card, enclose a check, and return both to the offering plate
• Be sure to hang pictures of campers from your congregation at camp!
• Have students write down on cut-out ornaments or decorations something at camp that they loved

Club 52:

Have supporters in the church donate a dollar a week for an entire year (This seems very manageable to people, and if you can get even 50 members to commit, that’s $2,600, or more…that’s 6 full scholarships!)

Adopt a Camper:

• Approach various groups in your church to adopt a camper
• Each group pays for one child to go to camp
• Camper returns to share their experience with the group

Pass a Bucket:

• Once each month, or every week for a month, pass a red bucket around during the service to collect money for camp scholarships
• Have children in your congregation who have gone or who are going to camp volunteer to usher this offering
• Each time, invite a camper to share a testimony with the congregation

Choose a Good Date
When planning the date consider the following:

• Local Spring Break schedules
• The Early Bird Deadline for camp (price increases after April 20)
• Easter schedule
• Other local factors that could impact attendance by your participants.

Prepare the Space
No matter where your event it is, be sure to provide some decorations that get people thinking and excited. The more exciting and unique you can make the space, the deeper the impression will be for those in attendance.

• Have students/adults wear camp shirts and bring sleeping bags and luggage.
• Hang up camp posters and photos, plus fill your video screens with camp photos and videos.
• Put a theme to your day such as “Be a Camper, Send a Camper” that invites everyone to be involved regardless of their age.
• Place students as greeters welcoming everyone to the day.
  Have hand-out materials (camp brochures, registration forms, personalized materials, etc).
• You can even have a clever little snack for everyone like s’mores after the service ends.

Work Ahead
Be working on all the details ahead of time. If you’re setting things in place at the last minute, important details might be missed or have to be dropped. Visit getkidstocamp.com to order any supplies you might need like: free posters/brochures, links to photos/videos and customizable materials such as slides and bulletin inserts.

Plan Multiple Speakers
Different voices and perspectives will greatly enhance your effect and clarity. Personal stories of those who have been impacted by camp through various roles of attending, sending and serving can share whether they are opening a service in prayer, sharing a testimony or by being a living example of God at work.

• Use current campers, former campers (from 18-80 years old), parents of campers, donors who have supported getting campers to camp, camp counselors, camp directors, or even camp staff (if available).

Have A Call To Action
It’s crucial to everything we do in the church; don’t forget to put an action step into your day. We are an active society, and we forget things if we don’t address them right now. So:

• Ask the students and challenge them to bring a friend with them to camp.
• Ask mom and dad to sign a camper up right there.
• Ask for a special scholarship offering.
• Ask those without children to give a brochure to a grandchild or neighbor.
• Ask everyone in the congregation to put a piece of paper in the offering plate with a number of how many students they want to send to camp to be introduced to Christ.
• Ask people to pray for all the 3,500+ campers, 1,500+ volunteers and 200+ staff this summer.

Introducing Camping to a Group
If you’re helping a group become familiar with camping, it’s important to do some groundwork. The people in your group need to understand why camping is both an effective and meaningful experience. The topics below speak to some key values and data regarding our summer camps; it could be presented as a complete Sermon Topic for the day or each part could be split into multiple speakers/weeks (students, parents, youth leaders, etc., sharing about how they experienced it), etc.

Outreach – Camp is a perfect outreach event with great features and activities that draw students into a place where they begin to have the first seeds planted regarding God. Here students have opportunities to experience healthy relationships with their peers and counseling staff that display Christian love, find both challenging and encouraging obstacles that help them grow, and dig into the big questions they have in a comfortable setting.

Evangelism – Every camper has a very clear opportunity to hear and respond to God’s Word and Salvation during their time at camp. Everything that happens at camp in some way reflects back to our Christ-centered philosophy. Even while students are on the blob, playing paintball, doing a high ropes course or challenged through games, the activities draw into discussions that help reveal Christ and answer questions.

Discipleship – For older campers, the story continues deeper as the message moves into the missional focus of being a disciple and what it means for each of us to live in the shadow of the cross and respond to issues of need and justice. Lastly, discipleship is continued through the unique connection between Impact 2818’s camps and the local church body. Even while at camp, the connection to the student’s home church is critically important and well understood. Programming helps to provide accountability and inspiration that will continue as the student returns home with their local faith community to continue their journey of becoming a committed follower of Jesus Christ who lives out the gospel.

Promoting Camp Events
Most often, churches promote: Camping in General or Specific events/sites. Both work well.

• We find that a church that sends its leadership and volunteers to lead a specific week of camp often promote that date and work diligently to get their students into the same event.
• Some churches have a history or affinity to a specific site and may simply encourage students to attend any week at that location.
• Other churches simply want to make sure the students are going somewhere and encourage the parents to choose the option that seems to fit their calendar and location needs the best.

Put It In Their Hands
No matter how you’re getting students to camp, you’ll just simply want to help put the information in their hand that can match your goals.

• Summer Camp Brochure (order for free)- Provides the essential information to get a family understanding the values of camp and what is going on, when it is, and how much.
• Summer Events List (download & print) – This list is also in the brochures; but if you have returners, this may be all they need to sign up.
• Registration Forms
• Scholarship Forms – Apply for tuition assistance from Impact 2818.
• Create a Custom Flyer – If you’re looking to promote just a specific event you might be best suited by using a custom bulletin insert or flyer; you might also want to keep some Returning Camper brochures around in case a family has date conflicts and still wants to experience camp.

Visuals On The Big Screen
Slides – Have a slide for the projection screen each week until camp comes reminding people to register, dates, scholarship info, etc.
Photos – Download some camp photos at impact2818.smugmug.com to give a good idea of what happens at camp.
Videos – Play our camp videos to help introduce, create interest, explain, wow, or to display a single element of camp. Download from impact2818.smugmug.com.

Camp Display
Set up a display area that lets your families know where to go and look for details as well as ask questions (if you are capable of staffing it with a volunteer).

Are you interested in putting your influence and time to work? We would love to have your partnership through sharing.

Hosting a Camp Sunday at your church can be an awesome experience to draw campers into a world of excitement and life change through camp. Camp is an amazingly influential opportunity that has proven to be a hugely successful way to outreach with an evangelical focus for younger students and to provide a great discipleship launch and steps for older students. Select from the many features and elements below to create an experience at your church whether it’s just a few brief minutes or a complete event.

There are lots of different ways to support the camping program.

• Prayer Partner – Add the camps, staff, volunteers, church partners, campers, board, and conference to your daily prayer life
• Church Camp Coordinator – See the tab "Information for planning a camp"
• Culture at Your Church
• Program Volunteer – Join the thousand strong counselors and directors who work directly with campers as they discover the gospel of Christ
• Facility Volunteer – Help teams of staff and volunteers equip .thousands of acres, buildings, and equipment necessary to make camps run
• Donations or Gifts-In-Kind – As we transition from user-funded to a donor-led ministry model, your gifts ensure that every child can experience camp, helps to underwrite operations, builds capital projects, and provides vital equipment, tools, and services