The CrossView Christian Camp, located in Dickens, will hold their annual Festival of Tables fundraising philanthropic gala under the stars Saturday, March 25 at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock from 4 to 7 p.m.
Kassi Appleton, director of operations with the organization, talked with The Texas Spur about their upcoming event and the goals for the Crossview Camp this year.
THE TEXAS SPUR: In the past you have held the fundraiser at the Turkey Church of Christ in Turkey. Why the switch to the Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock this year?
KASSI APPLETON: Turkey Church of Christ has generously allowed Cross-View to host our biggest fundraiser for many years in their beautiful facility. We’re so thankful to them and plan to host Festival of Tables or other events like FOT there in the future. We booked the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock for this year’s Festival of Tables because the program manager from NRHC gave us the idea at last year’s FOT and a generous donor covered the cost of the NRHC venue. Cross-View serves 50% surrounding communities of Dickens and 50% Lubbock children and youth. We want both the Lubbock community as well as our beloved surrounding communities to know about CrossView’s ministry and to get involved with big fundraisers such as our Festival of Tables philanthropic gala.
What are some of the projects that the Festival of Tables fundraiser goes to support each year for CrossView Christian Camp?
All of the proceeds from Festival of Tables will go towards camper scholarships. The real cost of a week of camp per camper this year is $400. Campers who qualify for a scholarship pay only $30 for their week of camp. Campers qualify for a CrossView scholarship if they qualify for free or reduced lunch in a Texas public school. Last year, 100% of CrossView’s campers attended camp on scholarship. CrossView Christian Camp’s Festival of Tables philanthropic gala completely funds our mission: to serve at-risk children and youth from low-income households across West Texas.
How many youth does CrossView Christian Camp anticipate serving in 2023?
The CrossView director team has already hired eight summer staffers and plan to hire four more. We plan to hire 16 junior staffers over the course of the summer. These junior staffers will serve one week at a time. CrossView plans to host 200 campers this summer.
What are key dates and programs for CVCC in 2023?
Staff Training Week begins June 4. Summer Camp will run through the beginning of August. We will be posting our Summer Camp schedule on social media, mass emails, as well as our website in April. There will be three Open Registration Camp opportunities that are first come-first served. “Start Up” serves ages 7-10, “Rev Up” serves ages 11-14. and “Level Up” serves ages 15-18. We will end the summer with our Leadership Camp, where we invite 10 female campers and 10 male campers ages 16-young adult.
How many employees does CVCC have? How many volunteers?
CrossView has three full-time employees at this time. Seth Appleton is our executive director. Kassi Appleton is the director of operations. Raelynn Beaty is the director of development. CrossView is looking to hire a full-time director of maintenance and grounds hopefully within the next two years. We are going to hire 12 Summer Camp staffers and approximately 16 junior staff for the summer. We usually have around 10 volunteers come out on various days of the week during the summer to help with anything from pool tabs, to packing camper backpacks, to hauling groceries from Lubbock.
What are the facilities and services that CVCC provides youth?
Because of the demographic CrossView serves, we only take 36 campers at a time and our adult to child ratio 1:2. Cross-View has one male camper cabin, one female camper cabin, a dining hall, a large pavilion with an air conditioned building connected to it (the Lion’s Den), a craft cabin, a camp office that also serves as our health center, a nice pool, a low ropes course, a high ropes course, disc golf, archery, a paintball course, and a pond for fishing and canoeing. Our campers learn life skills, teamwork and problem solving, and every recreation activity has an evangelism component that ties in to the summer’s biblical theme.
What would you like our readers to know about CVCC?
The mission of Cross-View Camp is to help atrisk, troubled and traumatized children from lowincome households in West Texas. CrossView targets kids who are engaging in or are at-risk to engage in negative behaviors such as drug use, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, delinquency, crime, gangs, self-harm, eating disorders, suicide, violence, etc. CrossView’s Summer Camp Program is designed to prevent and help eliminate the effects of these behaviors.
CrossView’s campers enjoy exposure to rural West Texas (many are from the inner city), swimming, high ropes course, low ropes team challenges, climbing wall, arts and crafts, live music, paintball, fishing, canoeing, ball sports, hiking, disc golf, campfires, fear factor games, trailer rides, range sports, and more.
CrossView’s campers are 2nd- thrugh 12th-graders who cannot afford camp and are not likely to succeed in a traditional camp environment, but they come to CrossView for one week where the program is designed for their unique needs and to facilitate their success. During camp they receive unconditional love, develop self-esteem, enjoy good nutrition, build teamwork skills, receive attention, witness character in action, improve social skills, gain cultural exposure, overcome fears, and participate in activities that promote spiritual, emotional, and physical health—all geared toward equipping them to effect real and lasting change in their individual lives, in their community, and in their generation.
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