Being able to enjoy time at camp on Palomar has been life-changing for many people over the years. Our grandkids were among so many others looking forward to a week at camp again this summer. So sorry to report Palomar Christian Conference Center had to cancel their summer programs because of this virus situation. Breaks my heart.
This post is from the Director’s wife:
From Jana Beard: Our Head Wrangler and my friend Jamie Anderson, wrote this so beautifully. Please read her words about how camp is doing. We don’t ask for donations because we “need a little extra.” The need is GREAT! Keep sharing friends! We need you!
From Jamie:
I’ve been pretty quiet on social media during this COVID time. Part of that has honestly been because I was able to enjoy a season of rest. I was able to enjoy it because of where I work. When it became apparent the shutdown would last for more than a couple of weeks, our board and director decided that to best steward camp’s finances and its staff that hours would be cut drastically for most staff, but they would keep housing and feeding all staff and their families. They also provided us with things like toilet paper when we couldn’t get our hands on any. I was able to continue caring for and training the horses and preparing for summer camp during this time. So you see we were provided with a shelter from the storm.
May and June brought on a rollercoaster of emotions as whether we would be able to have camps or not and what we would need to do to provide a safe experience for the kids and adults we love to serve and shower with love. We did our research. We made changes over and over again. We created a whole new camp in a week. We changed our camps from a 7 day format to a 4 day one in less than 24 hrs. We prayed. We took steps of faith, hard steps of faith.
We got about 10 days of having campers. We heard their stories. We saw how happy they and their parents were to let them be outside, be with their friends, and have some normalcy back in their lives. We saw that they didn’t care they had to wear masks at times and wash their hands a million times a day. They were just happy to be at camp.
Then the state said they actually haven’t decided that they want to have overnight camps. This is frustrating to us because our county health department had been advising us and providing encouragement for us to move forward, expecting the state to follow suit and it didn’t.
So, now because of camp’s generosity to our staff and our hope to have more people be able to enjoy camp this summer, finances are getting very tight. We had to furlough (lay-off until we are able to reopen) all but a handful of our staff.
Because camp provides housing for staff (and is continuing to do so) and we have 11 horses who still need to be fed and cared for we still have significant bills each month. I am working to sell or re-home a few of our horses that unfortunately are not key to running our horse riding due to various reasons. However, we would like to keep most of our horses in hopes to be able to continue having trail rides and horse camp in the future.
Please, help our board see their generosity toward our staff and horses has not been in vain. Help them see that our steps of faith are not going unseen and unheard, they are just resulting in a different outcome than we expected.
Please, consider donating, sending us a note of encouragement or scripture, help us find great homes for a few horses, and pray for us and all the other camps around the world. It’s sometimes hard to be vulnerable, but if nothing else we have been humbled during this time.
We truly need your help now.
Palomar Mountain News 
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