You can hear the ocean from anywhere at Camp Magruder, which has been welcoming campers since 1945 when the United Methodist Camp and Retreat Center first opened the facility’s doors. Blessed with a wealth of outdoor amenities, the 160-acre camp borders the beach and also offers old-growth forests, a freshwater lake, wetlands and ocean tide pools.
“It’s a beautiful site,” says Troy Taylor, Camp Magruder’s Director. “If you don’t come here and feel some sort of renewal just by being out here, then you’re not paying a whole lot of attention.”
Camp Magruder hosts 3,000 middle schoolers each year in the spring and fall for Outdoor School, as well as churches, organizations and families—more than 10,000 total guests each year. With many buildings built by volunteers over the years, the camp takes pride in its unique hodgepodge of facilities.
“It’s amazing testament and story of how the church was able to put together a lot with a little. What that has meant for us in the 2000s is that a lot of these places were deteriorating quickly,” Taylor says.
With support from the Gray Family Foundation, the camp renovated its bath house, adding new tile, fixtures, countertops and sinks, and brightening the room with new paint. In the spacious dining hall, LED lights replaced harsh, florescent fixtures, improving the ambiance while also saving energy. Diners are also more comfortable with the addition of two heat pumps, which replaced an older gas-powered boiler. The camp plans to add another heat pump in the near future and replace the dining hall’s single-paned windows.
“It’s great to have that funding for these maintenance projects,” Taylor says. “It’s hard to sell some of these projects that we really do need the funds for… I really appreciate this organization [the Gray Family Foundation] top to bottom.”