Blue Lake has received a $5,000 grant from the Mary I. and David D. Hunting Family Fund of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. The grant is to be used for financial-need scholarships for students from Kent County during the 2008 camp season.

The Hunting Family Fund was created in 2002 by the estate of Mary Ives Hunting to make the benefits of the overnight camping experience more readily available to the “underserved” children of Kent County. Blue Lake’s grant comes from the Access Camps program of this fund, which will award grants of $5,000 each to camps that have significant numbers of campers from Kent County, a “high and/or increasing population of ethnically and racially diverse campers and staff,” and whose enrollment (i.e., non-discrimination) policy echoes that of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation.

The Access Camps program defines underserved children as being from low income or working poor families, those with disabilities who have “significant limitations regarding overnight camp choices due to their disabilities,” and those identifying themselves as being of ethnic or racial minority groups.

Blue Lake’s mission to educate and motivate gifted young people interested in the arts, selected from a wide geographic area and a broad spectrum of socio-economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds reflects the Hunting Family Fund’s support of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation’s aim to “improve access to social and recreational opportunities that attract diverse populations.”

The number of students attending Blue Lake each year from Kent County has traditionally been strong. Since 2004, participation by Kent County students has been steadily increasing to a high of 374 students in 2007. Given the continued sluggishness of Michigan’s economy, Blue Lake is seeking to provide more opportunity for Michigan children with financial need to attend camp. The generous $5,000 grant from the GRCF and the Hunting Family Fund will assist the camp in its efforts to recruit more children from Kent County.

“We are especially grateful for the support of the HFF of the GRCF,” says Blue Lake’s Founder and President Fritz Stansell, “because it underscores the effort at BLFAC to serve the gifted young people of Kent County.”

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