Over twenty North Carolina summer camps have formed a trade association to expand public understanding of their industry and to represent their interests with local, state, and federal policymakers.   The North Carolina Youth Camp Association seeks to strengthen and expand the educational, environmental and recreational opportunities provided by North Carolina’s camps.  The Association will encourage cooperation among camps, sponsor camp-specific research, communicate camp industry information, and build relationships with various private, non-profit, public, and governmental agencies.

 “North Carolina is home to many of the most respected summer camps in the country. In the three-county area of Buncombe, Transylvania, and Henderson counties alone, there are over 55 camps. These camps include residential camps, day camps, camps associated with non-profit agencies, in addition to travel camps. They represent camp families from every state in the union and have a significant impact on the economy of the region,” said Gordon Strayhorn, the association’s President and director and owner of Camp Illahee, a ninety-year old girls’ camp in Brevard, NC.

 “The initial twenty-two camps formed the Association to work together on public policy issues, marketing, and professional development, and our association will educate the public on the value of summer camp and show how North Carolina’s youth camps provide children with the skills they’ll need as adults. We expect to grow to over forty camps this year alone.”

 The Association is being formed at a time when summer youth camps are facing a wide range of challenges.   Changing school calendars have condensed summers, primarily in the southern states, and have made it more difficult to operate financially.   Public lands for paddling, biking and camping which were once freely available are sometimes no longer available to organized camping.   Building codes require camps to construct buildings which are more like motel rooms and restaurants than camp cabins and dining halls.

The NCYCA will be a source of information for parents about North Carolina’s camps and will also be the voice of these camps with local officials, in Congress and the state capitol.   It will also keep camp directors abreast of the public policy issues affecting their camps.

 The Association has a Board of Directors made up of camp directors representing a variety of summer camps—boys camps, girls camps, coed camps, non-profit and for-profit camps, and camps associated with agencies.   The Association will operate as a 501c (6) organization—a trade organization.

 The Association’s Board of Directors named Chuck McGrady as its Executive Director.  McGrady is a former camp owner and director of Falling Creek Camp, a boys camp in Tuxedo, NC.  He has been actively engaged in public policy and advocacy for decades and currently is a Henderson County Commissioner.

 McGrady has also been active in camping nationally. He served on the national boards of the American Camp Association and the Association of Independent Camps, working primarily on public policy and legislative issues.

 McGrady is a former national president of the Sierra Club, currently is a trustee of the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, and has served on numerous nonprofit boards.

 “North Carolina’s youth camps provide life skills for their campers and economic benefits to their communities.  My job will be to educate public officials on the value of these camps, and the Association will be an advocate for them in Congress and North Carolina General Assembly,” said McGrady.   “I’ve been lucky to grow up in camping and raise my family at a summer camp that I operated.   I’m thrilled to be back in camping in this capacity.”