Christmas came early this summer to Camp Bob, the recipient of a joint venture between several local businesses.
Camp Bob, located on Roberts Lake and home to hundreds of children and youth each summer who participate in outdoor adventure camp progams, received an enormous gift from local industry and businesses this summer in the form of a new dock. The dock, central to daily watersports activities, has a value well exceeding $60,000 and was a joint effort between Marine Harvest Canada, DKS Industries and Coastline Towing who all pulled together to fabricate, launch and install the dock system for Camp Bob. The project, initiated by Marine Harvest in fall 2013 was completed in time for the 2014 summer camp season.
Les Klassen, Executive Director of non-profit Campfire Ministries & Camp Bob, expressed his gratitude on behalf of the camp to everyone involved in this project, including Clare Backman and Roger King of Marine Harvest for initiating this project; Cole Makinson and Joel McGee, also of Marine Harvest for many volunteer hours coordinating the project and installing the dock at the lake; Dennis Belavance and his crew at DKS Industries for dock materials and their many hours of fabrication and installation; and Coastline Towing for transporting the docks to Roberts Lake. He also thanks several private donors for providing the funding for decking material for the docks.
Regarding DKS Industries, Klassen said, “I can’t begin to imagine the time and effort that Dennis Belavance and his crew put into this project. Not only did he provide all the materials for fabricating the dock, he found the time to fit it into his very busy schedule and was able to complete it in time for us to use this summer. I can’t thank Mr. Belavance enough for his generosity. His expertise and attention to detail has given us an asset that will allow us to expand and facilitate more readily an already popular waterfront program.”
Klassen added, “Without the willingness of people to invest in the lives of children and youth, this project would never have happened. We have been given a gift that will be remembered as part of the Campbell River community forever.We can’t say enough how thankful we are to everyone involved. We feel the overwhelming support of this community for Camp Bob and are grateful to everyone who invests in this Camp, providing a legacy for generations to come.”
Camp Bob (Campfire Ministries) was recently awarded a long term Nominal Rent Tenure and Licence of Occupation by the BC government and Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations for land on the north end of Roberts Lake that it has been using for its summer camp programs for the past 13 years. In partnership with Ministry of Forests, Recreation Sites & Trails, Campfire Ministries also maintains five Ministry of Forests Recreation Sites in the Sayward Forest area.
Camp Bob is a rustic outdoor children, youth and family adventure camp promoting Christian and family values welcoming people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. It has provided outdoor wilderness-style adventure camps to thousands of community children and youth since beginning it’s programs at this location in 2002.
Camp Bob can be found on the web at www.campbob.ca