WinShape Camp was a hug success this past week at Crossway Church. The camp is a day or overnight Christian Summer Camp that has spread all throughout the southeastern United States with thousands of children attending every year and camps in seventy two cities The camps are run by volunteers and a WinShape team of twenty three who go to nine camps each summer with a total of eight teams. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chic-fil-A also founded WinShape. It was established in 1985 in Mt. Berry, Georgia, to provide a camp experience that would enable campers to sharpen their character, deepen their Christian faith and grow in their relationships with others. The camp has certainly accomplished that by bringing the community together in many different ways.

There has been a very positive reaction to WinShape from the church as a whole. Bryan “Moose” Tribble, Crossway’s Children’s Pastor, said that participating in WinShape was “the right call and we will definitely try it again next year.” He also said that it has been “truly a community collaboration” and when asked about the kids’ reaction he said they have loved it and “love being loved on by the staff.” The church did not start planning the camp until January after the church was approached by the local Chic-fil-A and selected to participate. They had five months to put together what most other churches had a year to do. They have been very successful despite this obstacle and had a total of 306 kids participating last week from multiple churches throughout the community.

Through fundraisers and partnerships with businesses such as Mutual Credit Union and Helping Hand Pharmacy the church was able to raise $30,000 to help kids go to the camp. Through this effort they were able to scholarship twenty kids into the program along with cutting the price dramatically for the first kids to sign up.

The Camp Director for this week has been Alison Rice who was been a part of WinShape for six years. This is the first week of the summer for the team and when asked about how the Vicksburg experience compared to other locations she said she was “awes struck by how quickly the kids jumped into it and made it come to life.” Every child seemed to be having a great time despite the heat and camper Alex Tingle said he “liked it more than Sports Camp” which is what Crossway did for many years during the summer. The camp came to a close with “Friday Family Funday” where the parents were able to come to Crossway and see all that their children had done and learned throughout the week with lunch provided by Chic-fil-A. With fundraisers already starting, the church refuses to sit idle and is working to make sure next years WinShape is even bigger and better.