CORNELL — From announcing the purchase in October 2023 to officially transferring ownership on Jan. 9, 2024, Our Nawakwa now looks towards the camping season with a grand opening this spring.
From noon to 4:00 p.m. on May 5, 2024, Our Nawakwa will open its doors to the public and invite members of the community to check out the revitalization of the campsite. Camp Nawakwa can be found at 25336 County Hwy E in Cornell.
“A lot of people know or knew of Camp Nawakwa because you drive by it or drop your children off, but they didn’t really get to experience it,” said Jodie Belknap, a lead volunteer with Our Nawakwa. “This is an opportunity to come in and see, ‘Oh, what does that space look like? What do they have to offer my youth group or my organization?’”
Since the official transferral of ownership, Belknap said that a bulk of the work has been to do a lot of deep cleaning, inventory management and give the camp some “tender love and care.”
While the initiative of Our Nawakwa was to come together and purchase the camp in order to keep it alive with old memories, part of the work has been to bring back that quality and revitalize the 75 acres of land.
But Laura Ebert said other than a few areas which may have been neglected over the years, most of the camp has been ready to go and just needed a little “sparkling up” to get it ready. With May 5 as their grand opening day, Ebert and Belknap said people are able to receive tours, participate in family activities and make some s’mores at the community event.
Ebert said the importance of their opening day is “to get people to see how important our Nawakwa is… It has been in the news for quite a bit; I think having people come in and see shows why we felt it was so important to save the camp and start this new nonprofit… Everybody has an opportunity to come and check it out for themselves.”
“This small group of people poured their heart and soul into something that they believed in to their roots. Even though they had families and their own jobs, they found time to still do hours and hours of work to make this happen,” said Belknap. “And with that kind of energy and commitment, I am excited to see where we go and what we do with the commitment of a larger community that supports us.”
While the grand opening does not come until early May, Our Nawakwa also plans to host an event this weekend to introduce themselves and the camp to the Chippewa Valley community.
The event will take place on Sunday, Apr 21 from 2-4 p.m. at the Chippewa Area History Center, as all are invited to share stories of their experiences with the camp, learn of its long history and of it’s future with Our Nawakwa.
Both events are free. Tickets to the grand opening can be placed through the organization’s “events” page on their website, at ournawakwa.org .
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