RANDOLPH — A newly organized group of volunteers called Friends of Timbercrest is preparing for its first work weekend of the year in April. These people love Girl Scout Camp Timbercrest and have made it their mission to help clean up and care for the camp.
Jennifer Schlick, volunteer chair for the Friends group, said the three-day work weekend will begin Friday, April 13 at 3 p.m. and the group will continue working until 3 p.m. Sunday, April 15. Camp Timbercrest is located at 11169 Moore Road in Randolph.
The idea for the group was conceived by Schlick and her daughter Emily, who are both Lifetime Girl Scouts very passionate about the camp.
Schlick said as they walked around the camp at the 50th anniversary event held last July, there was a mixture of nostalgia and disappointment because some things had run down a bit. They decided they had to do something and thought of the Friends group that would come in as work parties to help clean up the trails, fix the bridges and some of the buildings on the property.
During that event, Chief Executive Officer Judith Cranston was there, as well as Chief Operating Officer Alison Wilcox. Schlick said, after the ceremony, she went on a little walkabout around camp with them and pointed out things that needed some tender loving care. That’s when she presented the idea of starting the Friends of Timbercrest group to the Girl Scout Council.
Because she wanted to do everything right, Schlick met specifically with the council’s Chief Development Officer Jerilyn Hickey. She wanted good communication between the council and the Friends group, so it would be harmonious.
“Our group is modeled after the ‘Friends of Allegany’ group that does so much for Allegany State Park,” she said. “Our thought was, ‘Hey, we love this camp and we’ll come and do whatever it takes to help out.’”
To kickoff their mission, the group started out with a couple of projects last October that included the Lake Trail around Kaiser Lake. Schlick said the trail is overgrown with brush and the bridges are falling apart, so it’s hard to walk it now because it’s fallen into such disrepair.
“The trail and the bridges are one of our big projects and the group is very excited about it,” she said. “We started the ‘Build a Bridge’ campaign and we’ve raised over $4,000 toward new bridges; some of those will start going in this spring.”
Schlick said there are a lot of dead and dying trees leaning and dropping branches. With the last heavy snowfall creating more debris, they will have extra work to do. Last fall, they opened up some areas around the tents to provide more daylight and airflow to reduce moisture and mold. “Viewscapes,” or narrow clearings, have been created so the lake, which is the gem of the property, can be seen from several points through the heavily forested areas.
“We started working on the viewscapes at our first work session and we estimate that we only got about a third of the way done,” she said. “The official summer camping season begins at the end of June, so we need to get as much done as we can during this next work weekend in April. Hopefully, we will be pretty well cleaned up before the summer camping starts.”
Schlick said there is the potential for volunteers to continue work on occasional Saturdays after the scouts leave from their camping session, especially on the Lake Trail where a lot of work awaits them.
Other projects the council has asked the Friends group to do is paint the exterior of several relatively new cabins including the infirmary, the director’s cabin and the cook’s cabin.
“Ro” Woodard is one person in particular who has stepped up to help the cause, according to Schlick. She said Woodard is former counselor at the Girl Scout Camp from the very beginning. She’s been very instrumental in helping the group get up and running, including a Camp Timbercrest sweatshirt sale.
Schlick said Camp Timbercrest opened in 1963 for day camp on the north side of upper Gulf Road in Randolph, that is now named Moore Road. In 1967, it offered a residence camp on the south side.
“I’ve been camping there since the beginning. As a girl, I don’t remember how many years I went to day camp, but I definitely remember going. In 1967, I started going to Girl Scout Camp and I went every year that I could,” she said.
Schlick said she worked at the camp in the early ‘80s for one year as a camp counselor. She said some of the people she worked with that summer continue to be her best friends.
According to Schlick, the Girl Scout Council has many properties throughout Western New York but limited staff, so they are using the Friends of Timbercrest group as a pilot program for other Friends groups at some of the other camps.
Supported by the Girl Scouts of Western New York, the Friends group is inviting the community to take part in this service project. People interested in volunteering are asked to register no later than April 8 by emailing friendsoftimbercrest@gswny.org. For more information, visit online at gswny.org. Find “Friends of Timbercrest” on Facebook.
(Contact reporter Deb Everts at salpressdeb@gmail.com.)
