Floating Canoe Dock at Camp Holiday Trails

. I drew out the designs from scratch and spent over a year raising $1,500, half of which was sponsored by the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club. I set the build date for late spring 2010 in order to complete the dock before Camp activities started and let the water warm up for the inevitable wade into the lake. On the build date, over 40 volunteers came out to assemble the half ton dock and move it into the water. To get a glimpse of the size to the project it is important to break down the time commitments and planning that went into the build. Raising $1,500 in an economic recession is not an easy task. I decided to use my hobby of photographing reptiles and amphibians to raise money. I created two packets of note cards, one with pictures of local reptiles and one with baby bearded dragons that I have raised over the past few years. I sold these packets for $10 each and raised half of the money for my project. In order to fund the other half, I made a presentation to the Blue Ridge Mountains Rotary Club, and they agreed to match any funds I raised. With the extensive planning, hours fundraising and the actual time spent building the dock, I spent 62 hours on the project. After adding up the time all of the volunteers spent putting the dock together, the project took 170.75 man hours to complete. Just weeks after the dock was completed, CVBC started at Camp Holiday Trails. The dock was used for fishing and for launching canoes into the lake. As a Junior Counselor I helped run the fishing and canoeing rotations. Many of the younger campers who had been afraid of getting in canoes in previous years were able to gently step into a canoe already floating in the water instead of wading into the lake to get in and out of the canoes. At the end of the summer, the director of Camp Holiday Trails told me that campers used the dock all summer for canoeing relays and aquatic activities and that it provided greater access to the waterfront for a group of kids not usually able to enjoy normal camp activities.