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Donations stack up to replace stolen wood
Community comes together to get Camp Connections ready for the summer

Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Wednesday, June 29, 2016

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
After having most of their supply of firewood stolen, Camp Connections now has enough logs to keep bonfires blazing.

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Camp Connections offers week-long summer camp programs for children in foster care or receiving support from social services. The large building is the cookhouse, which is part of an ongoing fund-raising effort to rebuild. - photo courtesy of the Foster Family Coalition of the NWT

Camp Connections is a summer camp run by the Foster Family Coalition of the Northwest Territories. The camp hosts children in foster care or receiving support from social services. They start their week-long sessions tomorrow at their site east of Yellowknife on the Ingraham Trail. But on June 21, when camp director Nicole Garbutt arrived at the space, she realized the majority of the wood they'd purchased for the summer was missing.

NNSL photo/graphic

What was left of the woodpile after around a cord was stolen last week from Camp Connections, run by the Foster Family Coalition of the NWT. - photo courtesy of the Foster Family Coalition of the NWT

"It was not nearly as much as it should have been. I hadn't seen the delivery, so I took some photos of it and sent it to my executive director, and then on to the supplier saying, 'Is this right?' Because it was very messy and stuff like that," said Garbutt.

"He said 'No, that is far less.' So somebody must have gotten into it between that time."

The wood was destined for the camp's nightly bonfires during each of the five week-long sleep-away camp sessions this summer.

"For kids in care or who are receiving support from social services, routine and structure is very important to their daily lives," said Garbutt. "So one of the things that we do every night is we have a big campfire."

Usually, the only thing stopping them is fire bans.

The camp paid around $600 for the cord-and-a-half of wood, and most of it was missing as of June 21 but not for long. Garbutt posted on her on personal Facebook page about the theft, before sharing it with the camp community. Since then, they've been inundated with people wanting to help.

"We have not had the wood returned, like nobody's come forward and said, 'Oh I stole your wood, sorry about that.' But since I put that post on Facebook, which wasn't really intended for anything other than kind of getting it off my chest, people have been super generous and supportive," said Garbutt.

"It's been a huge, huge support."

At press time, Garbutt said they'd had 10 to 15 families donate either wood or money. This isn't the first time they've had damage to their property. Despite large and clearly posted no-trespassing and private-property signs, Garbutt said the camp has had six doors kicked in, as well as a wood stove stolen from the boy's sleeping cabin this year.

"Every year there's some sign that people have been poking around and checking it out, but this year to the extreme. It's kind of been a continuous theme, to the point where it's sort of like every time we go out we're thinking, 'OK what's going to be done this time,'" said Garbutt.

There is still a pipe hanging down from the ceiling of the cabin where the stove was stolen, and they had to rebuild one of the door-frames because it had been splintered so badly from the vandalism.

"I would hope it's not targeted specifically against Camp Connections. I mean to steal from anybody is awful, but to steal from a camp for foster kids I feel is something else," said Garbutt.

She said they don't have any idea who could be responsible, and could only comment that the camp hasn't filed anything with the RCMP.

"Our camp area is located very close to the Cameron River campground though, which is not a regulated camp ground, so I know there's always many different people out there, so perchance it was somebody who was camping close by and decided to take a look around or maybe it was just somebody driving by and saw a moment of opportunity. "

They have, however, heard from the rest of the community.

"We've been accepting wood donations, if people don't want to drive it all the way out there we have a foster family in town that has come forward and offered to kind of host the wood locally, and they have a trailer to drive it out. So if people want to donate wood, they can contact the office and I can help them coordinate that," said Garbutt.

As well, the organization is accepting monetary donations through their website, which can be earmarked for wood replacement, to contribute to their ongoing fundraising or to rebuild its cookhouse.

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