With arms and hands stained with paint, almost 100 teens gathered in late July for a worship service at Camp Charleston, giving thanks for the incredible amount of work that had been completed.
The teens were in Charleston attending M-Fuge, a summer camp program affiliated with LifeWay Christian Resources. Charleston Southern University hosted almost 4,000 teens during the university’s 12th summer as an M-Fuge site.
Camp Charleston is a ministry of Riverpointe Christian Academy and offers low-cost childcare. Kathy Jones, director of Camp Charleston, said that when the lease on her facility ended in May she didn’t know where the camp would move or how they would get there. Within a few days, an M-Fuge coordinator called her to ask if Camp Charleston was interested in creating a service learning project for the summer.
“Absolutely,” said Jones, putting in motion a partnership with M-Fuge and Camp Charleston for the sixth straight year. “I hate to be greedy, but I’ll take as many as you have available,” she added.
Day after day for six weeks, groups of M-Fuge teens poured into Camp Charleston’s new location on Ashley River Road, “cutting grass, digging ditches, painting, picking up trash, mopping, pulling nails from two-by-four boards – because we have to use them again – doing everything imaginable,” said Jones.
During the last week of M-Fuge, almost 100 students worked three days at Camp Charleston, providing 810 hours of labor. “If we had one person working 50 hours a week, it would have taken 16.2 weeks to do what they did in three days,” said Jones. In all, M-Fugers contributed 1,560 man hours of work at Camp Charleston.
Jana Spooner, LifeWay’s Fuge camps event coordinator, said, “We are thankful to be able to join hands with CSU during the summer to share the hope of Christ with the city of Charleston.” – CSU