Camp Kawartha is about to embark on a remarkable journey. We’d like to invite you to join us!

Our goal is to become recognized as a National Environmental Education Leadership Centre. A place where we teach campers and children simple acts of green; a place where we promote connection to nature and to each other, where we foster the skills to enjoy the outdoors; a place where we teach educators, parents and community leaders about best practices in environmental education. A place where we can inspire Canadians to adopt both a low carbon and sustainable future.

Here is how:

Camp Kawartha is seeking to build one of Canada’s first fully certified living buildings www.living-future.org/lbc. Far beyond LEEDS, the Living Building Challenge is a standard that ensures buildings are designed to use materials with the lowest possible embodied energy and toxicity. There are only 30 fully certified living buildings in the world and only one other in Canada. Replacing our aging dining hall, this innovative building will increase our capacity and enable us to deliver programming, workshops and training to an additional 4,000 participants per year. It will be a demonstration project for architects, builders and developers to adopt these strategies into the mainstream and help youth and adults develop leadership skills, foster ecological awareness and provide an inspiring example of how nature and humans can be fully integrated into the same living space. This space will also be fully accessible to ensure there are no physical barriers to Camp Kawartha’s programs and services. The building is being designed in consultation with local First Nations groups to include Indigenous elements.

We’ll replace our waste water management system with a state of the art green system that accommodates our increased capacity. The system will teach visitors how to responsibly treat waste water using the latest in approved green waste management design. This is a necessary upgrade as we expand on our programs and services to serve more people and communities.

We’ll reclaim green space for a large organic food and pollinator garden and incorporate an outdoor kitchen. This additional green space and garden will not only supply the kitchen with fresh produce, but will also serve as an important teaching tool for helping visitors to understand the importance of healthy, local food. We plan to offer programs demonstrating how different cultures use local food in traditional meals and offer opportunities for new understanding

There is an urgent need to replace our aging Health Centre. We need a designated, accessible space to care for the health needs of visitors, campers and students. This space will be designed by the Endeavour Centre as a showpiece for the very best in sustainable design and innovation.