Construction, Renovations, and Upgrades … Oh My!
In preparation for our 2017 annual Gathering, I was in
Pennsylvania in mid-June for a week and had the opportunity to visit the camp
for an afternoon. And let me tell you, the camp is not sparing any expense on
the new construction, renovations, and upgrades they are making to the
facilities! Let’s start with the cabins.
At the time of my visit, six cabins have been totally renovated; I
mean, from top to bottom. Those six cabins have brand new interiors including
new knotty-pine interior siding; the rafters have been removed and the ceiling
has also been finished in knotty pine. You’ll also find brand new bathrooms in
these cabins – new toilets, showers, sinks, faucets, and even new electrical
outlets at each bed. In addition, the old windows have been replaced with
double pane, tinted windows that actually close tight! And finally, those
cabins have real doors. Real doors! And a ceiling fan!!
The next huge renovation that you’ll immediately see if you’ve
been to The Gathering is that both dining halls have also been redone with
knotty pine siding and new light fixtures over the serving line! This changes
the ambiance of the dining halls completely. Remember the two bathrooms right
outside the doors on the back side of both dining halls? Yup, they’ve been totally
refurbished, too, with new fixtures, lights, and knotty pine siding. But it
doesn’t stop there.
Remember the two sets of mobile port-o-potties that were parked behind the left dining hall? Well, they’re gone. In their place is a whole new building structure consisting of eight (8) brand new restrooms, also done in knotty pine. In fact, there is so much knotty pine installed, I was told that over 100,000 linear feet of wood was purchased and installed over the winter months since December!
But we’re not done. Make your way into the auditorium and you’ll
find a brand new, huge, exhaust ceiling fan in the middle of the seating
section. Don’t worry; I already checked it out to see how loud it was and it’s
super quiet. We test drove the fan and turned it on low and you could barely
hear a hum. As soon as the fan got up to speed, a nice breeze was wafting
through the screened windows. On those hot, swelter-y Pocono evenings when
we’re all sitting in the auditorium, we’ll experience the cooling effects of
the badly needed major improvement.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that in addition to the six cabins
that have been totally renovated, an additional nine (9) cabins have had
significant partial renovations to the back wall (also done in knotty pine) and
brand new bathrooms with knotty pine siding, toilets, sinks, showers, faucets,
etc. Those cabins are slated for completion by next year with additional cabins
being chosen for renovations next year.
