HANCOCK COUNTY — An effort to build a lodge and event space at a longstanding county youth camp was recently completed.
Nameless Creek Youth Camp held ceremonies to celebrate the completion of the Lodge at Nameless Creek, a 3,600-square-foot building with capacity for 150 people. The building also has restrooms, a kitchen and outdoor seating.
The celebration was a long time coming: The effort to build the facility first began in 2014.
The total cost of the lodge was expected to be about $120,000, officials said. In 2017, the total estimated cost was raised to $175,000, in part because a larger septic system was required.
All told, the building cost $300,000 total and received at least $140,000 in in-kind donations of supplies and labor, youth camp President Jerry Bell said.
“We had tremendous in-kind support from appropriate businesses,” Bell said. “For every aspect of the building, we had people just stepping up to be superb helpers.”
The camp broke ground on the lodge, which measures 90 feet by 40 feet, in June 2016. Construction started in March 2017. Organizers faced delays in construction when they discovered the land’s agricultural zoning didn’t allow for construction of the event center. They received a special zoning exception.
In addition, the completed lodge boasts a 900-square-foot deck, half of which is covered. Nameless Creek Camp, 2675 S. County Road 600E, is a nonprofit organization, run by about 24 volunteers, that promotes healthy living outdoors.
The majority of the construction costs for the lodge, located on the 12.7 acre facility that hosts youth camps, family reunions and Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, was funded through volunteer efforts, officials said.
In the last two years, the camp has promoted the sale of a book about the founder of the camp by local historian Joe Skvarenina and established an annual fundraiser, “Fall that Jazz,” featuring jazz music, magicians, a dinner and a live and silent auction.
The proceeds from this year’s event, held earlier this month, went toward a list of finishing touches to the lodge, including a floor treatment, an overhead wireless projector, a second refrigerator and a convection oven to go with the electric stove already in the kitchen area, officials said. The event raised some $9,000, Bell said.
Nameless Creek’s lodge effort also received some grant funding, including a $2,000 grant from the White Family Foundation Fund and $5,900 from this year’s Steak’n Bake’n Raffle, an effort of the Greenfield Rotary Club.
Leaders in preserving the camp credit a donation from another local nonprofit organization in giving the lodge its first boost.
Benny Eaton, a member of the Nameless Creek board, brought a proposal to the Greenfield Sertoma Club in 2014 for a 20-foot-by-30-foot addition to the camp’s current kitchen building, said Bob Benefiel, a Greenfield Sertoma member, in 2016.
Initially, the club wasn’t interested, he said. But once the idea for the lodge began to develop, Sertoma made a $10,000 contribution.
Bell said he and other members of the board have already begun fielding calls from people interested in hosting weddings and other events at the lodge, which he said will help to sustain the organization in the future.
