What happens when you put together 80 kids, 80 adults and a community in need of simple, spiritual service?
It’s “Camp Cadiz,” now in its 11th year — and with no signs of slowing.
With 14 local churches collaborating, the past three days of mostly-beautiful weather have been spent reaching out to those most in need — from those a few feet away church doors, to families on the outskirts of the county.
Cooking meals, building handicap ramps, improving properties, mowing yards, cleaning gutters, hauling off trash and scrap, pulling weeds, teaching Vacation Bible School, random acts of kindness — if it could be done this week, it was done, and almost certainly by the youths at Camp Cadiz.
Now in his second year with the program, Brandon Michael Moser, Jr. — a sophomore at Trigg County High School — has been helping Amy Carneyhan with VBS at The Way.
He’s maintaining a simple notion, too: good charity starts at home.
For Alisha Nyakeraka, this is her third year at Camp Cadiz, and each year she does something different — hoping to gain a different life skill with each passing summer.
She’s cooked, done yard work, and this year is part of the VBS crew at The Way in order to put all the skills into one, multifaceted job.
James Adams lives six hours away in Salyersville, but keeps coming back to Cadiz — and this camp — not only to visit his family, but also because he simply loves it here. This is his third time in the program, and he’s been part of a cooking crew this week that’s been responsible for several random acts of kindness — as well as some fully-crafted meals all over the county.
His cousin, Taryn Carter — soon to be a freshman at Trigg County High School — is also on a cooking team, and is in her second year with Camp Cadiz…a place she finds great joy.
Among one of the bigger projects going this week for Camp Cadiz: considerable upgrades to a second-story deck owned by Rachel Anderson, on Barefield Road. The Trigg County Primary custodian is in the middle of becoming a foster parent, and thought the process is going well — certain changes had to come to the property in order to complete the charge.
An unnamed coworker sent the carpentry project in to the non-profit group, and the crew has delivered in a big way — setting to work early Wednesday afternoon in replacing old lumber with new.
In his eighth year with the program, Trigg County High School senior and avid fisherman Jordan Hampton was part of a surprise crew sent to help further curate Anderson’s yard — one of the 10 or so he and several guys have mowed for locals this week.
And Aidan Goodwin, a member of Locust Grove Baptist Church going to Trigg County Middle School, is in the midst of his first year at Camp Cadiz. He certainly enjoys carpentry and liked helping with the deck, and he has already made plans to attend this gathering in 2022.
Following Thursday’s breakfast and morning worship, groups will put the finishing touches on a few more local projects and random acts of kindness before a closing supper and internal worship at Liberty Point Baptist Church.
