Camp Mockingee Celebrates with 65th Anniversary Campfire

This year the Rotary Club of Windsor is celebrating a milestone in the history of Camp Mockingee, the primary project of the Club since 1949. Camp Mockingee's 65^th Anniversary Campfire will take place on June 22 between 4 and 7 pm and Windsor Rotary is inviting the public and particularly any former campers to attend.

For a special treat Peggy Kochanoff will lead a nature walk around the Blue Trail, a beautiful forest walk. Games, swimming, hot dogs and s'mores around the campfire if weather permits, otherwise in our newly renovated dining hall. Campers who stayed in the original 6 unheated cabins - well, you should see us now!

Windsor Rotary has a long history of supporting sports, picnics and camping for youth. As early as the nineteen-thirties, the Club sponsored picnics for boys and girls. The minutes of August 15, 1932, record that 270 boys and girls attended a picnic at Evangeline Beach organized and conducted by Rotarians. Transportation was provided by Club members in 30 cars and one truck, without mishap. Similar picnics were an annual event for several years. A letter from the first Windsor Scout Troop Leader in 1940 reads, “Without your nightly deliveries of milk and supplies, without the kind loan of Mr. Colin Taylor's truck to transport our Company equipment to and from the camp, without your generous donation of fine prizes for the winning patrol, and without your unstinting help in many ways, the camp could not have been the heartening success which it was.”

In the summer of 1949 the Club transformed an empty field and forty acres of land bordering Lake Mockingee into Camp Mockingee. Three members of the Club, George Bartlett, Thomas Aiken, and Arthur Parsons led the project that acquired the land, oversaw the construction of eight buildings, and the development of the playing fields and waterfront. Total cost of the project was $9,000, which would be over $100,000 in today's funds.

Since that time the Camp has been transformed into a year round facility with a fully equipped kitchen and dining hall, as well as heated dormitories with washrooms and showers. “We are particularly anxious to have former campers come see all the improvements,” says Rotarian Andy Kirk, who chairs the committee that manages the Camp. “The original six unheated cabins are still in use during the summer and will bring back fond memories for some of the early campers.”