Here are some highlights from 2011:

Friends of Laity Lodge Youth Camp (LLYC) have donated 60% of the $800,000 fundraising goal for the LLYC Scholarship Fund. A record 138 LLYC campers will be awarded more than $120,000 in scholarship assistance for sessions this summer.

Supporters helped established a new Laity Lodge Family Camp Scholarship Fund. In 2011, twelve individual family scholarships were awarded along with three fully funded experiences (including transportation) for more than 45 families from San Antonio through three Community Partnership weekend retreats.

The Laity Lodge Scholarship Fund provided about $16,000 in retreat assistance for 73 individuals.

Gifts and grants totaling $494,000 of the needed $535,000 have been received for the Outdoor Education Program. In this first year, nine new schools were introduced to the Foundation Free Camps through this newly established program. A principal shared the following with us, “As I reflect about the Science and Leadership Camp that we were so fortunate to hold at your wonderful facility, I realize that this was a life-changing experience for most of our students! This year, our 5th graders scored higher on their November benchmark tests than in any previous year ever!”

We have a $2 million goal for the Laity Lodge Speakers’ Fund. At the end of the year, we are pleased to announce 75% of the goal has been achieved. Proceeds from this fund provided honorariums for more than 50 biblical and relationship experts to share their insights at every Laity Lodge retreat in 2011.

We were deeply encouraged by the response to the first ever annual campaign for The High Calling. More than 250 readers provided gifts totaling nearly $30,000 to help expand the reach with in-depth and free resources about the integration of faith and work.

Just how much did our reach expand? Half a million unique visitors (up 27%) came to The High Calling in 2011 where they found helpful advice and encouraging stories. Our weekly newsletter grew to 15,000 subscribers. Our daily Bible reflection on faith and work grew to 17,000. And we currently have an incredible 30,000 highly engaged readers on our Facebook channel.

If you would like more information on the programs or giving opportunities, please contact Perri Rosheger, Director of Development, at 830-792-1204. We remain grateful to everyone who chooses to support the work of Laity Renewal.

Significant progress has been made as depicted in these two photographs. The first features the initial work that allowed the buildings to move forward. The second depicts all that has been accomplished since then. Please click on photos for a larger view and to see closer views of the construction progress.

Hundreds of you have played a role by financially supporting this project. We can’t thank you enough. If all goes as planned, programming will begin in the facilities in the spring of 2013.

Please pray with us that these next 52 weeks will be as productive as the first ones!

We are excited to share that materials for the riverfront terracing rockwork along with the sand required for site preparation have come right off the property.

In the meantime, lives continue to be renewed and transformed through the program in the existing facilities. Hopefully, you will be inspired by some of the comments we received from four nonprofits whose families have benefitted from the Community Partnership Camps over the past two years. These families have had past hardships that made their retreats very special:

Laity Lodge Family Camp provides our families with an opportunity to relax and enjoy memorable moments with their children.

It allows families the opportunity to become closer and learn communication skills.

The families enjoy life away from the daily routine. Going to Family Camp unites the family and gives everyone a chance to spend much-needed quality time together.

2011 (New) School Recruits
Rodriguez Elementary School – Seguin
Weinert Elementary School – Seguin
Patlan Elementary School – Seguin
O’Henry Middle School – Austin
Cunningham Elementary School – Austin
Allison Elementary School – Austin
Perez Elementary School – Austin
Galindo Elementary School – Austin
Fort Concho Elementary School – San Angelo
Lee Middle School – San Angelo
Santa Rita Elementary School – San Angelo
Park Village Elementary School – San Antonio
Coronado Elementary School – San Antonio
Woodlake Elementary School – San Antonio

Existing Schools (Outdoor Ed Program helped with programming)
Sterling City Elementary – Sterling City
Hobbs Alternative High School – Sweetwater

Our desire in the Campaign is to raise $800,000 to support camp scholarships. To date, we have reached more than 50% of the goal. We hope to complete the funding by 2013. Naming a scholarship fund is a wonderful way for families to work together to provide camp for boys and girls. Each family receives an annual recipient profile as well as details of the LLYC Scholarship Fund growth. If you would like more information, contact Perri Rosheger, Director of Development, at 830-792-1204 or email her at prosheger@laityrenewal.org.

The matching gift donor shared that, “TheHighCalling.org has been an important resource for me as I try to live out my faith in my daily work. As a leader in the banking industry, I find the daily readings and weekly articles provide encouragement and help me focus on the right priorities throughout the day. It is a privilege to provide a challenge gift at this time to encourage others in The High Calling community to join me in supporting this significant work.”

If you are not taking advantage of this free resource, visit TheHighCalling.org today and consider becoming a member.

As always, thank you for your partnership as we work to provide opportunities for people to encounter God for the transformation of daily life!

It was last year, at this time, when we received a generous pledge of $800,000 in the form of a challenge grant from the J. E. and L. E. Mabee Foundation of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The challenge was meant to help close out the $8.5 million campaign to build new facilities for Laity Lodge Family Camp. At the time of the pledge, we had raised $5 million.

Looking back, these past twelve months were challenging and rewarding times for us. Challenging because the economy meant people were committing smaller gifts than we had originally hoped. Rewarding because, despite the “Great Recession,” more than 400 individuals, families, and foundations generously supported the effort. For more than 60 percent, the gift to Family Camp was their single largest commitment to the organization to date. In addition, nearly 20 percent of the donors gave their first-time gift to the organization through this effort.

Thank you to everyone who made sacrifices so that thousands of families will be renewed and transformed through this program and new facility.

The initial stage of construction began January 17. Click on the picture above to see progress happening now. Stay tuned as we share each stage of progress in the coming months!

As we sit down with family and friends this Thanksgiving Day, all of us at Laity Renewal are thinking of the special people we depend on to provide opportunities for people to encounter God for the transformation of daily life, work, and our world!

This past year, many people like you have helped us expand and improve our programs.

Here are 10 reasons why we are especially grateful for you right now:
10. Speakers at twenty-nine Laity Lodge Retreats were made possible through support of the Laity Lodge Speakers Fund.

9. LLYC Scholarships were awarded to more than 100 boys and girls for the best one or two weeks of their lives this past summer.

8. The first-ever Program Director in the Foundation Free Camps was hired to inaugurate the new Outdoor Education Program.

7. Stipend support was extended as bridge funding to ten groups for their Free Camp experiences. These are mostly nonprofit organizations that work with disadvantaged boys and girls. Through this support hundreds of youth experienced all the benefits of overnight camping this year.

6. A new three-platform canopy zip line was installed in the Canyon in time for summer camp. This type of adventure element is important for developing confidence, teambuilding, and leadership skills in youth.

5. More than 50 families from San Antonio who are overcoming significant socioeconomic barriers were provided with transportation and scholarships for a fully programmed retreat at Laity Lodge Family Camp.

4. Chap Clark, leading author and Professor of Youth, Family, and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, provided training for more than 200 LLYC staff members. These college students more deeply ministered to nearly 1,500 youth this past summer because of the support we received for this training.

3. LLYC Outbound Haiti 2010 took 34 students and adults to Limbe, Haiti in July where they provided four days of camp for 200 youngsters. In addition, more than 300 gifts for this program allowed us to drill a water well and install a filter that produces clean water, provide hundreds of plants and infrastructure for a mango grove, and construct several permanent buildings for the camp.

2. Laity Lodge Family Camp is well on its way to meeting the $800,000 Mabee Challenge for new facilities. Thanks to the hundreds of gifts that have been earmarked for this program, we have faith that more than 700 families will be served through this program each year.

1. Simply put, in addition to the tangible impact you are making in each of the programs, your support tells us you care about the vision and mission and encourages us to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us!

The significant climb in scholarship funding has been very important in this difficult economy. We received a 30-percent increase in the number of families needing assistance. A total of 159 applications were received, and 101 full and partial scholarships were awarded. Sixty-two percent of the recipients were from households with annual earnings of $45,000 or less.

Our campaign goal for LLYC scholarships is $800,000. We expect to exceed the halfway point by the end of the year. LLYC registration for 2011 begins this month. It’s critical that we continue the momentum to reach the funding goal within the next two years.

If you or someone you know are interested in learning about our LLYC Named Scholarship program, please feel free to contact Perri Rosheger, Director of Development, at 830-792-1204. Named Scholarships are a wonderful way to see firsthand the impact of your gift. Also, it’s a great way to demonstrate the power of giving to your children as you share the experience as a family each year.

Many have chosen to support an LLYC camper now through the secure giving page at www.llyc.org.

If you’ve already made a commitment, THANK YOU! It’s our hope that the broader Laity Renewal community will want to join in the effort to complete this phase of the project. We have only until December 31 to claim the $800,000 Mabee Challenge.

A special website has been developed that includes a two-minute video from David Rogers about the project. The site additionally provides a secure online giving/pledge form, updates and expanded information about the program, as well as the new Family Camp site plans.

If you haven’t visited the Laity Lodge Family Camp Mabee Challenge site, I hope you will take a minute right now to experience it. Also, will you consider sharing this with others who might be interested in learning more about this project?

We’ll close with a comment made at a gathering on September 25 by Lucy R. Ross, a volunteer leader at Laity Renewal:

On my heart at this moment is the opportunity we have to build a Family Camp that will offer families a premier experience to reconnect, recreate, or reconcile in this healing place that is along the Frio River. We are so close to the finish line, and I feel like God is saying that we are just to trust him. That does not mean we are to stop actively seeking funding, but we are to have faith in the God who, “by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” Amen.