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INDIAN TRAILS CAMP - CAMP OF DREAMS
Indian Trails Camp is a remarkable facility that brings adaptive recreation to the lives of physically and mentally challenged campers. It is simple in theory, but daunting in task. Indian Trails provides a barrier-free camp setting in which those with disabilities can participate in all manner of activities the outside world is ill-equipped to provide. It is a place filled with fun, recreation and friendship. Campers learn perseverance, teamwork and self-reliance. They leave for home loaded up with love, respect, friendships and memories.
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The Camp is a non-profit organization supported through private donations and has been a longtime special project of the Rotary Club of Grand Rapids and its members. The history of the partnership between Indian Trails Camp and the Grand Rapids Rotary Club is one of energy, accomplishment and heart. Since 1953, Rotarians have invested their time and money toward the success of the camp, helping Indian Trails become a community and state treasure, and one of only five camps in the nation serving the most disabled group with barrier-free camping.
Indian Trails’ mission and values are a living example of three of Rotary’s “Four Avenues of Service” – Vocation and Youth Service, Community Service and World Community Service – specifically through the international counselors who come from all over the globe to learn the significant lessons of service.
Over the past 45 years, the Rotary Club of Grand Rapids has been involved in raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the camp. Just recently, club members, many of whom sit on the camp’s board of directors, were instrumental in helping raise $3 million to upgrade the camp to a state-of-the-art facility for physically challenged children and adults.
Indian Trails Camp is located within Aman Park, eight miles northwest of downtown Grand Rapids. Through the years, it has evolved into a major program for physically challenged children and adults throughout Michigan. The camp has grown into a facility that houses over 500 campers in the summer months and over 25 campers during the fall, winter and spring respite season. Campers’ ages range from six years old to adults in their 70’s that come for a two-week, one-week, or weekend program.
The facility has over 25 buildings, which include a mail lodge and a recreation center, a state-of-the-art aquatic center, fourteen cabin units, a multi-purpose building with stage, a chapel by the lake, a music building, health center, an administrative office and a director’s residence. To successfully operate this program, Indian Trails employs over 85 young adults from all over the world, who are working toward degrees in education, therapy and related human service fields.
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