Your contributions go a long way in supporting camp and keeping it sustainable for the future. The program areas, facilities, website, field trips are just a few of the areas that rely on the generous donations from our alumni, parents and friends. We accept money or materials…these donations help keep the price of tuition one of the most affordable in New England.
With help from our directors, we put together a current wish list of some specific needs. Please consider donating now so that some of these needs are met for next summer. Thank you!
Donate to the wish list!
Program Areas
Canoeing:
Canoeing was always one of our Director, Sean’s, favorite program areas. The Androscoggin trip was the highlight of his camping career, and still is for many campers still! Unfortunately, many of the canoes campers are using are the very same ones Sean and his Cabin 15 mates used back in the ‘90s. While they definitely can last for decades, we’d love to replenish the fleet and ensure every canoe is ready to go on every trip. Please help us purchase new canoes and even replacement yolks for our aging fleet!
Rowing:
Another waterfront necessity for a popular program area will be new oars for the rowboats. Some of the boats currently have mismatched pairs. How will campers be rowed out to take the notorious boat test if our rowboats don’t have oars? With your help, we can ensure that all the rowboats can be used this summer.
Lifeguard equipment:
The ACA requires that our waterfront and lifeguard equipment be in perfect working order. We’re currently in need of innertubes, whistles, and underwater diving goggles. Our AED devices need replacing and servicing each summer and while we always have these on hand, they are a steep regular cost that your donation could alleviate and allow our waterfront to continue to be the central hub of camp!
Please let us know if you can help by donating these essential tools. “Buddy Check!”
Impact Vests:
Everyone knows that the coolest program area is (and may always be) waterskiing. The excitement that sweeps across a cabin when hearing your cabin can sign up for a spin around the lake that afternoon is always electric!
Like the lifeguarding equipment, we’re needing to replenish our waterski life vests. These special vests which fit tighter, have better coverage, and are also padded to protect from hitting the water hard, are required. We need to increase the size offerings of vests to allow as many campers an opportunity as possibly while ensuring they are in perfect order to ensure a safe and fun summer of being dragged behind a very powerful boat.
Engines and Maintenance:
Capsize your sailboat? Swamp a canoes and no t-rescue coming to save you? Fishing in the middle of the lake and your oar break? If any of these have ever happened to you then you were likely rescued by one of our staff on a smoker craft. The engines on these boats require delicate maintenance and as they age, need expensive replacements. In order to continue to have the entire lake available to us, we must be sure our engines can be fixed or replaced. If you have an outboard engine that just needs a bit of work or want to donate to help pay for gas, repairs, or replacements, please let us know!
Tennis balls:
Anyone who has worked at camp in the past couple of decades knows how easily these get lost. We seem to start every summer with buckets of tennis balls and, despite the regular tennis ball hunts, end each summer with very few. These are a hot commodity and are used across many different games in Athletics and Tennis (of course) so please help us keep the tennis ball stock up to date by donating now!
Athletic equipment:
After Funning (Swimming), I think the program area that gets the most overall traffic must be Athletics. Help us continue to grow our Athletics program with some new fun games, new equipment like balls (basketballs, soccer balls, and playground balls), and general sports gear like cones, frisbees, bats, hockey sticks, Cornhole sets, and more. We’re even looking to add additional coolers for ice water, and an EZ-up tent to provide shade on the lower courts. Anything we can get our hands on will get used…A LOT!
Archery Equipment:
Like tennis balls, arrows at archery have a habit of disappearing. Well, actually, we’re pretty sure they are all over the swamp behind the chapel and hopefully, the bullfrogs are all ok. Please help us replenish our stock of arrows and our archery instructors will continue to try to teach the campers to hit the targets.
With all our new arrows and new archery shed, we’re also going to need new bows and targets! All the arrows that did hit the targets have left them pretty beat up. We’re looking for some generous donations to help us with new targets, and hopefully, some upgraded bows to help the campers who spend time at this program area continue to improve their skills.
The Musical:
After only little more than a week, during the 3rd session every year, camp pulls off an incredible musical extravaganza. So many campers look forward to this all year long and commit a significant amount of their session to rehearsals and the performances that we want to ensure they have everything they need. Costumes, sets, make up, sound, and lighting all go into putting on this performance on a tight schedule and your donations towards the musical will mean we can focus on putting on a heck of a show.
Music Program:
While the musical is a great attraction for many, for the rest of the summer, so many campers get their musical fix by learning from our amazing counselors. This has grown each year and we’re now in need of some specific instruments to help build out this program to its potential. We’re specifically looking for a quality electric keyboard with a stand, a small drum kit, and hopefully to own our own guitars instead of renting them each year. If anyone has these in an attic or basement and is looking to donate them, or is looking to help us procure these please let us know.
Crafts: Pottery is a HUGE hit and Clay is expensive!
Our beautiful craft shop and ceramics studio is one of the most visited programs at camp, especially for our junior campers. We’re in need of new and additional pottery wheels, and we’ll need a new and larger kiln to accommodate the number of pieces. If you’re a pottery fan and want to help camp continue to grow this offering from crafts please don’t hesitate to donate, or contact us to discuss this need.
Donate to the wish list!
General Camp Asks
Beds:
Were you a top bunk or bottom bunker? After spending one summer up top, I settled into bottom bunks for the rest of my time as a camper. The beds at Billings have been in use since I was a camper in the 90s, and I suspect that they were even slept on for years before that. Needless to say, we’d like to replace all the camper and staff beds a couple of cabins at a time. We’d love as much help on this project as we can get so if you’d like to specify that your donation goes towards helping campers get better sleep at night, please identify that on your donation. Or, even better, get a gang of friends together and help us outfit an entire cabin!
Mattresses:
Perhaps even more important than replacing the beds, are the mattresses. One year as a counselor, I remember using a mattress that was about a foot too long for my bedframe, nevertheless, I slept like an elderly cat in a ray of sunshine on the back of the sofa. Oh, to have my 18-year-old body back again! To ensure our staff and campers can rest, no matter their age, we very much need new mattresses each year!
Songbooks:
Each summer we need to print and bind a large number of new songbooks to put into our dining hall. Whether we loved singing time after meals or not, we should all agree that the Camp Billings Songbook is iconic, and a core memory for every camper.
If you’d like your donation to go towards the re-printing of Songbooks, please indicate that and we’ll respect your wishes. Oh, and let us know what your favorite song is/was. I always got excited for Green Grow the Rushes and Toviska. The first because it’s so fun with the whole camp banging on tables and adding their riffs. And the latter because it’s just such a strange song, which is why when I was Director Sean’s counselor in Cabin 15, we made this song our own and would break out with it at any time, at any meal. Because if it weren’t for castles in Toviska, I’d never be a soldier.
Proper Tool cabinet for maintenance:
Having worked in maintenance with Larry for several summers, I can empathize with Camp’s need for a real tool cabinet for the maintenance area. While the maintenance shed is full of all the tools camp needs to stay standing, literally in some cases, it’s not a very big space and we’d love your help in keeping such a tight space organized. For anyone who ever through a frisbee through a screen, hammered a shelf onto your cabin wall, or needed to learn the differences between the different classes of levers from Larry, please help maintenance do what it does!
Water bottle filling stations:
Almost every camper carries a water bottle now at camp. In fact, I think there may even be a bit of a fashion element to what type of bottle and what stickers may be on it. Ensuring bottles are full and campers are hydrated is super important, but we can’t have campers in the kitchen, or the infirmary, and the bathrooms may sometimes be a little far away. Therefore, we would like to add filtered and chilled water with water bottle filling stations at the dining hall and outside the infirmary. These need to be purchased and installed by a plumber.
