BETTENDORF, Iowa — The YMCA of the Iowa Mississippi Valley is putting out the call for fundraising to send kids to summer camp.
The organization runs Camp Abe Lincoln, a 250-acre traditional summer camp in Blue Grass, Iowa.
The camp has hosted thousands of kids since its start in 1924. They offer camp staples such as horse riding, zip-lining, canoeing, obstacle courses and an aquatics center.
In the summer of 2021, the camp hosted 1,990 kids, according to Luis Leal, the executive branch director of the Bettendorf Family YMCA. Of those kids, 650 were awarded scholarships to attend.
Leal said that those scholarships totaled $109,000 last year. It costs $500 for families to send a kid to overnight camp for a week.
Leal also said the goal of the camp is to get the kids "off their iPads and out of the house," along with giving the parents a break as well.
"An inner-city kid, they don't leave their 10-block radius the entire summer. So when they go back to the first day of school...they asked us 'what you do over the summer,' and we told them about the cool vacations that we probably took. These kids don't get that opportunity to do that," Leal said."So going to Camp Abe Lincoln and be able to talk about, hey, I went fishing or I grew tomatoes or I learned how to build a fire. That's a pretty cool story that we want all the kids to experience."
As an organization, they are about $50,000 away from their total goal, with the Bettendorf YMCA $3,700 short of their building goal, according to Leal.
The YMCA of the Iowa Mississippi Valley hosts their annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot as one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. They also are hosting a golf outing on June 24 to fundraise for the programs.
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