By: Camp Committee Chair Susie Berg

I am a URJ camp kid. From 1979 to 1982, I attended Goldman Union Camp Institute, in Zionsville, IN. I loved my time there, and I always wished there could be a URJ camp in Canada so that when I had kids, they’d have a home-grown URJ camp to attend. Imagine my joy, then, on July 1, 1999, when my husband and I drove with our 3-year-old and our 6-week old, in the pouring rain, to Parry Sound to be part of the community opening of what I what I always thought was a dream — Canada’s own URJ Camp George.

Twenty years. Twenty years of learning and laughing and growing. Imagine that. Now, can you imagine the future? How wonderful we can make it? What if the next step in our future looked like this:

Well, I’m delighted to announce that, in fact, our future can, and does, look like that image. We want – and need – to add the setup of the physical space that Camp George occupies so that we can continue our journey and our growth. This building is the new Pavilion we plan to build at camp: a covered, open-sided space for new programming in sports, new programming in arts, for t’fillot when the weather doesn’t allow for use of the beit t’fillah, and for gathering our camp community together in new ways.

As of our 20th anniversary celebration, held on September 28 at Temple Sinai in Toronto, our community — all the people in that room, all those who support them in spirit, and many more — had raised $1.2 million toward building this transformational space on camp. $1.2 million. That’s remarkable for our community. And now we have officially launched the final push: the public campaign that will cap off the fund and put the roof on our fundraising and our Pavilion. We are so close — so close — to having this flexible indoor-outdoor space, this room to breathe, this room to imagine what the next decades at Camp George can be.

Best of all, every contribution matters. Whatever you give or pledge, you will be part of our future. Name a banner that hangs in the Pavilion for $1800 (all at once or over three years), name seating for $540, name a stone in our pathway for $180. Go ahead, name multiple stones or seats or banners to honour or memorialize or celebrate. Make your mark; help us meet our goal and build our Jewish future together at Camp George.

Make your mark today by supporting our pavilion campaign. Click here to donate in Canadian dollars. Click here to donate in US dollars.