Leelanau Outdoor Center challenges, and prepares students.

LEELANAU OUTDOOR Center campers toss eggs to each other (left) as part of a “LOC Olympics” event that included a “dizzy izzy” footrace (right). At center, camp director Clark Shutt prepares to lead students in one of the many goofy songs they learned to sing at camp.

Leland Public School sixth grader Christian Doran says he will always remember the hike he took with his classmates one night last week under a full moon at Pyramid Point – and the lessons they all learned.

Doran and dozens of other Leland fifth and sixth graders last week took a three-day field trip to the Leelanau Outdoor Center, a camp located on 220 privately-owned acres near Port Oneida in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

During a two-hour night hike, counselors used the terrain, celestial bodies and other natural features along the trail as examples for “life lessons” they hoped to impart to the students.

Be considerate,
do your best,
and have fun.

– Leland student Will Saffell stating three goals for students who visit the Leelanau Outdoor Center

A “false summit” encountered during one portion of the hike taught students a lesson about not giving up. A view of the North Star was used to teach students a lesson about being dependable.

“We also learned that you have to lead by example,” Doran said. “And there was this place where you could really hear your echo, so we learned that what goes around comes around – if you want to get respect, you have to give respect. We also learned a lot about cooperation,” he added.

Classmate Will Saffell could easily rattle off the three goals for students visiting the Leelanau Outdoor Center: “Be considerate, do your best, and have fun.

“It was awesome,” Saffell added. “The counselors were great and even the food was good.”

A STUDENT negotiates the ropes course at
the Leelanau Outdoor Center.

The Leelanau Outdoor Center offers “outdoor education” and “adventure” experiences to school children from all over Michigan throughout the fall, winter and spring. During the summer, the facility operates as Camp Leelanau for boys and Camp Kohahna for girls and is affiliated with the Christian Science church.

Located on a spectacular site overlooking Lake Michigan, the camp features a climbing wall and an aerial rope course as well opportunities for swimming in Lake Michigan and paddling the Crystal River. In winter, activities include building snow shelters, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

The Leelanau Outdoor Center’s secular “character education” programs combined with healthy doses of geology, biology, natural history and fun activities “are the kinds of things that school teachers just love,” said camp director Clark Shutt.

Leland sixth grade teacher Laurie Lippink Lisuk agreed. Like teachers from all four of Leelanau County’s public school districts, Lisuk has been bringing children to LOC for years.

“We want Leelanau County children to experience the natural beauty of our dunes and woodlands while learning the natural history of our peninsula,” Lisuk said. “Returning to the school setting, we find that the children have a better appreciation of their county, their peers, and their self-worth. As teachers, we have been afforded opportunities to observe and interact with our students in settings that extend the scope of the classroom. Throughout the school year, camp experiences and ethics are referenced and reinforced,” Lisuk said.

Those experiences cost money, however – money neither the schools nor the Leelanau Outdoor Center have.

Fifth grade teacher Jason Stowe explained that it costs about $120 per student for a three-day program at LOC. Parents were asked to contribute a minimum of $50 for this year’s trip.

“Some parents can’t afford that much – but we always find the money and no one is ever left behind,” Stowe said. “Other parents contribute more than the $120 it costs for each child. If that didn’t happen, there’d be no camp. And then there are the scholarships,” Stowe said.

The Leelanau Outdoor Center itself this year donated $1,000 in scholarship money for Leland Public School from a foundation that helps support the camp. An additional $1,000 the center received through the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation also helped support scholarships for Leland Public School students whose parents were unable to cover the cost of sending their children to the camp.

A parent of one of the sixth graders who visited LOC last week, Jenny Henderson, said she believes the camp experience is invaluable. A “parents night” was held on the second evening of camp. A number of parents volunteered to stay overnight in cabins with the children.

“I’m so thrilled they get to do this,” said Henderson. “I got to go to camp too when I was in the sixth grade, and I know the lessons kids learn there can last a lifetime,” she said.