Senior Director of Infrastructure Andy Mulcahy said renovating Compton Lodge at Girls Camp was one of the biggest projects the Miniwanca facilities team tackled in 2023. Compton is often used to provide staff housing during the summer season and dorm-style lodging in the fall and spring for smaller community and school programs.

“This was a complete rehab to enhance the building’s accessibility, make it more efficient, and generally more comfortable for its occupants,” Mulcahy said.

Starting at the top of Compton’s exterior, the team replaced the roof with a white thermoplastic polyolefin material, which is designed to reflect summer rays away from the building and increase energy efficiency. The facilities team also replaced several windows, repaired siding and trim, and added ADA-compliant ramp access. The exterior will be fully complete this fall with exterior paint and caulking.

Inside, much of the building was stripped down to the studs for a full renovation. The team gutted and rebuilt two communal bathrooms with updated plumbing, including accessible toilets and showers. The existing kitchen was renovated to be more compact and better meet the needs of the space. Facilities also installed new wiring, LED fixtures, outlets, and a new fire alarm system throughout the building, as well as new flooring on the first floor. Mulcahy hopes to also add a nurse’s station in a still-to-be updated part of Compton.

“The building has been back in use since mid-May,” Mulcahy said. “It’s been wonderful to breathe new life back into this valuable space and welcome occupants again.”

Other recently completed projects at Miniwanca include adding riprap (a layer of large stones that protects soil from erosion in areas of high or concentrated flows) to the shoreline on both sides of the Stony Creek spillway. Siding was also replaced or repaired on the duplex cabins in 50-Bay, 60-Bay, D-Bay, and A-Bay.

At Merrowvista, the facilities team was hard at work repairing the site’s well water filtration system by late May, ensuring fresh, safe drinking water for summer campers and staff. The Merrowvista Eating Lodge also received some much-needed love in the off-season; facilities replaced the floors in the dish room, kitchen, and bathrooms.

Danforth Lodge, which is frequently used for smaller community and school programs and staff overflow housing, also saw updates and improvements this season. Its 30-year-old roof was replaced with a standing-steam metal roof.

“The new metal roof will shed snow much better than the former asphalt roof,” Mulcahy said. “It will also not be prone to fungus and grime as the other roof was.”

Danforth’s exterior also received a refresh with new paint, as well as replacing any old siding, boards, soffit, or fascia. Merrowvista also received a significant upgrade to wash day thanks to a new commercial laundry facility in the Danforth basement.

“When possible, we make every effort to upgrade and repurpose existing structures like Compton and Danforth so they can serve our Miniwanca and Merrowvista communities for decades to come,” Mulcahy said. “I’m grateful to our dedicated facilities teams for their skills and to our generous AYF community for investing in the infrastructure that supports these powerful youth programs.”

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The American Youth Foundation strives to preserve, restore, and renovate existing buildings, but Senior Director of Infrastructure Andy Mulcahy said Miniwanca’s shifting sand dunes made the Fellowship Building and Assembly unsafe to use. After much deliberation, the AYF made the difficult decision to take down both structures.

Built in 1951, the Fellowship Building was perched on a steep hillside and once served as a central meeting spot for leaders. “Before the building’s decommission, the Facilities Team saw an opportunity to preserve its legacy by carefully removing the building’s fireplace stones, which came from each of the 50 states,” Mulcahy said. “We have securely stored them for future use elsewhere at Miniwanca.”

The spirit of fellowship lives on at that site. The facilities team replaced the structure with a large open deck overlooking Stony Creek, allowing campers to experience quiet moments of small group connection and conversation.

Mulcahy said significant structural issues over time caused the nearly 100-year-old Assembly building to lean precariously. Miniwanca took down the structure in spring 2022 but preserved the Assembly fireplace and mill stone.

“We know how important these historic structures are to our Miniwanca Founder Family,” Mulcahy said. “We hope to honor their legacies by repurposing key parts of the original buildings to create new spaces for youth to explore and enjoy for decades to come.”

At Merrowvista, the facilities team renovated existing structures to make them more welcoming to youth. They renovated a Super BIFF (Bathroom in the Friendly Forest) that includes showers and restrooms for use by all participants, as well as single-stall, gender-neutral spaces for transgender and gender-expansive participants.

They also made living spaces more comfortable for onsite staff. They added a lower-level egress to the apartment below the Health Center and completed a gut rehab of the Treehouse, which includes a staff apartment above the camp pottery studio and commercial laundry space. Even the youngest community members saw improvements this year, as the Scout Village classroom was refreshed to create a more child-friendly space for staff children.

Work at Merrowvista continued during the summer as older Wayfinder campers embraced new challenges through service-learning projects under the supervision of Facilities Infrastructure Manager Adam “Boots” Smetana.

Session A Wayfinders carefully took down the aging structure that housed the camp bell, whose clangs signal the day’s activities. They constructed a sturdy platform as the base for the new bell tower, then followed Smetana into the woods, where they felled trees to support a new metal roof.

Session B Wayfinders donned their hardhats and got to work on a log cabin on the A-field that interns built in the 1990s. Campers took it down to the studs and rebuilt the structure from the foundation up, adding and staining logs, creating and installing floors, and adding a new roof.

Smetana said these campers left Merrowvista with so much more than practical skills. “The Wayfinder program gives campers the chance to truly be of service to the Merrowvista community and to contribute to the future camp experiences of others,” he said.

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Senior Director of Infrastructure Andy Mulcahy said the AYF began monitoring the structure’s lean in 2017, when it measured a difference of 6 inches from the bottom to the top of the front wall. In fall 2019, it rapidly shifted another 1½ inches.

“Unfortunately, the building was actively moving and deemed to be unsafe to use,” Mulcahy said. “We set up extensive bracing to support the structure and began working with an engineering firm to figure out how to revive Assembly.”

Miniwanca and the AYF Property and Maintenance Committee considered three possible solutions: a steel infrastructure inside the building to completely take the weight of the existing structure; removing the roof to reinforce the walls with multiple structural improvements, then rebuilding the roof and dormers; or completely rebuilding Assembly.

“Each plan came with its own costly price tag,” Mulcahy said. “After much deliberation, we made the difficult decision to take the building down and build a new Assembly.”

The AYF is working with HDJ Architects and Engineers in Grand Rapids to design a space that honors the legacy of Assembly, which was built in 1926 then added to in 1930, 1936, 1938, and 1953. Mulcahy said the existing fireplace and original mill stone will remain in place, and the new structure will be built around them.

With an eye to history and budget, the Miniwanca team has also carefully removed items to be reused in the new space, including the windows, doors, electric fixtures, cabling, outlets, and the state flags. Assembly has been deconstructed ahead of summer 2022, and the space in front of the Assembly Amphitheater will be prepped for outdoor use. Construction on the new Assembly will begin after the program season.

“As with the Fellowship Building, we know how important these historic structures are to our Miniwanca Founder Family,” Mulcahy said. “We hope to honor their legacies by repurposing key parts of the original buildings to create new spaces for youth to explore and enjoy for decades to come.”

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Merrowvista Facilities Manager Patrick O’Hagin has been hard at work this year on three major projects. His largest ongoing task is the Farmhouse renovation to make it more inviting for the dozens of seasonal staff who use it each year. “With everyone working remotely, it really was a blessing in disguise to have the perfect opportunity to work on the Farmhouse,” O’Hagin said.

O’Hagin said he’s cleared out much of the bulkier clutter, like large cumbersome desks. He’s also adding a meeting room, which the Farmhouse currently lacks, as well as two phone rooms to allow for my privacy when seasonal staff connect with friends and family back home. To finish, O’Hagin will brighten the space with a new coat of paint, updated light fixtures and replacing or refinishing floors as needed.

The Eating Lodge has also received a refresh with new countertops at the front of the building and the installation of two mobile salad bars. “The goal of this work was to improve traffic flow in the front of the Eating Lodge, where there is access to the kitchen and dish room, by moving some services like coffee, to the side, or cereal out to the main room,” he said.

O’Hagin also spent much of the spring cutting brush around Merrowvista, enhancing the area’s beauty and maintaining order on site. Clearing entrances around the villages will make it safer and easier for campers to enjoy their summer home.

At Miniwanca, Facilities Manager Chad Warner and Facilities Project Coordinator Lance Bernhardt have been hard at work renovating 55 cabins at Girls Camp and Boys Camp. Bernhardt said this project actually began four or five years ago. “It has taken on a life of its own since then,” he said. “I’m not sure anyone realized the extent of the project in the beginning.”

Warner and Bernhardt, along with local carpenters, contractors, and other facilities staff, started work on each cabin from the ground up. First, they raised the structures and replaced their foundations. They then reframed each door and window, and they replaced weathered, damaged siding. Each cabin also received new landings, including stairs and handrails, new plywood floors, and a fresh coat of interior and exterior paint.

Campers’ first night in the cabins will prove much more comfortable next summer, especially when it comes to battling mosquitos. “Previously, there were no bug screens, and the tarps for use in inclement weather were on the exterior of the cabins,” Bernhardt explained. Now, a screen covers each window, and new tarps can be lowered from inside the cabin. They also repaired or replaced all bunks and leader beds, adding safety railings and steps to reach top bunks more easily.

“There is much work yet to be done,” Bernhardt said. “Girls Camp is 95% complete, while Boys Camp is about 75% complete. We have received many accolades for the work undertaken and completed in this time.”

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