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Rotary Trust Fund makes Camp Harstad a reality

ESCANABA — The Escanaba Rotary Trust Fund for Children with Special Needs, which funds the continued operation of Camp Harstad and other local Rotary initiatives, is once again asking for the support of community members in the form of donations to a fundraising campaign. Envelopes for the campaign can be found in today’s issue of the Daily Press.

Roger Charbonneau, the camp’s director and vice president of the trust fund’s board of directors, said the campaign has the overall goal of stabilizing the trust fund to ensure the programs it funds will be able to continue.

“(It’s) to regenerate the corpus, or principal, of the trust fund so that we don’t have to go out on an annual basis seeking funds,” he said.

Camp Harstad is a Ford River day camp for children with disabilities that has been operating in its current form since 1949. Originally, it was established to help children with polio; after a vaccine for polio was developed, the camp’s focus shifted to helping children with disabilities.

Donations to the trust fund will help support Camp Harstad, a swim and exercise program for children with special needs — which, along with Camp Harstad, is provided in conjunction with the Northern Lights YMCA — a Christmas party for children at the Delta-Schoolcraft ISD Learning Center and grants to agencies to help children with special needs.

“We also do scholarships every year for disadvantaged kids … that have graduated from high school and want to pursue higher education or (a) technical training program,” Charbonneau said.

The last envelope campaign in support of the trust fund took place in 2017.

“This’ll be only the second year that we’ve done this envelope (campaign),” Charbonneau said.

Along with the inclusion of envelopes in the Daily Press, Charbonneau said the trust fund has applied for a 2 percent grant from the Hannahville Indian Community as part of its fundraising efforts. The trust fund is hoping to raise about $250,000 through the campaign.

Charbonneau voiced his appreciation to people in the community for helping the trust fund.

“Thank you for (your) past support of Escanaba Rotary and the Escanaba Rotary Trust Fund for Children with Special Needs,” he said.

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