What is the Sawyerville Day Camp?Sawyerville is a rural, crossroads town in Hale County, Alabama. And the "Sawyerville Work Project", now the Sawyerville Day Camp - and what many locals call "The Camp" - is a day camp sponsored by the Youth Department of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and the Sawyerville Commission .
Sawyerville Day Camp ministry, begun in 1993, is supported by many people. People serve as prayer partners, staff members, organize book drives, gather paper products, provide meals and make financial gifts. The Episcopal Diocese has committed substantial funds to this ministry. The generous people of the Black Belt have opened up their homes and churches for staff housing and meals. Volunteers from within and outside of the Episcopal circle lend time and talent. High school, college, and adult staff come from all over the state to serve as counselors. The Hale County School Board permits use of school facilities and buses. This project is woven together by a hundred different supporters, all working together to form the Sawyerville experience.
History & Cultural Info
The Sawyerville Day Camp is held in Hale County, Alabama and is one of the most rural and impoverished areas in the Blackbelt region of our state. The geographic region only 100 miles southwest of the Birmingham is at an economic disadvantage with very limited resources. The high school graduation rate is only 34% with 74% of households earning less than $30,000 per year. Almost 200 families live without plumbing and healthcare is nonexistent for most.
The Sawyerville Day Camp’s location originated at the Head Start Center in the small town of Sawyerville, hence the name. Within a few years of hosting the camp, the Center could no longer accommodate the increased numbers of campers and staff volunteers. The elementary school in nearby Greensboro welcomed our project and we have enjoyed this partnership for 13 years. The camp currently serves children and families from the towns of Sawyerville, Akron, Greensboro, Newbern, Eutaw and Moundville. Most of the campers come from Sawyerville, Akron and Greensboro and a growing number from the Sunshine community in Newbern.
The Sawyerville Work Project is, on paper, a day camp. It is an outreach project sponsored by the Youth Department of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama & local community volunteers. It takes place in the summer for just a few weeks, and for that camp session, the children that attend the camp are not framed in the light of the region's poverty. They are simply kids, having fun, in a place created solely for them.
The camp originally came about through the connecting of two entities: the Episcopal Black Belt Ministries and the Youth Department of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. The Episcopal Black Belt Ministries was a worshipping community of the Episcopal Church, formed by a cluster of 10 parishes in the Black Belt, their clergy and lay leaders. The Youth Department is a group of youth and adults that plan and facilitate Diocesan-wide events for senior high young youth and EYC advisors.
How did it start?
In the early 1990's, the Black Belt Ministries Coordinator was working with lay leaders to keep alive a kind of summer event created for children in Sawyerville. At that time, the Youth Department was searching for a summer-time outreach project to offer to senior high youth in the diocese. Previously, a companion relationship with the Diocese of South Dakota allowed a delegation of youth to help facilitate a Vacation Bible School for Lakota natives at Camp Thunderhead in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The impact of this experience left the Youth Department with a strong desire to participate in and provide an outreach experience of similar depth in their own Diocese.
The Youth Department issued an advertisement for a local outreach project, the Black Belt Ministries responded and the idea of the first youth-led Sawyerville Work Project was born.
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