Sound View Camp and Retreat Center Evolves

Sound View Camp is evolving. In 2024, the camp hired new leadership staff. In May, its board began a transition from a faith-based organization to the Salish Sea View Corporation. A partnership with Nisqually Land Trust added educational and volunteer opportunities, and the camp is expanding its summer programs.

The camp was established in 1919 and run by the Camp Fire Girls until 1985, when it was purchased by the Olympia Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA, said Nancyrose Houston, president of the new board.

“I was a camper at Sound View when I was 12, was a high school volunteer, and then a cabin leader,” she said. She returned in 2018 to start the outdoor education program and joined the camp board of directors in 2021.

Houston said that many faith-based camps have converted to nonprofits to give them more flexibility and expand funding opportunities. The new board’s mission, she said, is to educate future generations to be caretakers and stewards of the environment.

“We have always had many secular programs,” Houston said. “This transition will make it more explicit that we welcome all groups.”

Program Director Manny Rodriguez is excited about growing and expanding what the camp offers. He joined the staff about a year ago with a background in outdoor education and youth development.

Sound View will offer two five-day faith-based camp sessions this summer. It is also adding three-day nature-based camps and several theater camps in partnership with Gig Harbor-based French Toast Theater Productions, owned by Madeline Hunter.

“Those theater weeks will be great because Madeline will be operating the theatre program from 9-5, and our staff will take over for evening activities,” Rodriguez said. “That means campers will get the best of both worlds, learning theater and arts while also participating in outdoor recreation activities in the evenings.”

The camp will continue to offer a few themed weekends for families during the year, as well as family camp weekends with optional staff-led activities. It offers facilities for small group retreats.

Kendra Karwecki, the current outdoor environmental education director, oversees the program that brings fifth graders from North and South Kitsap School Districts to the camp for three days and two nights during the spring and fall, part of the Washington State Outdoor Schools for All program. Peninsula School District students participate in the program at YMCA Camp Seymour on Glen Cove.

Originally from the Midwest, Karwecki moved to Olympia to live by the mountains.

“I love being here,” she said. “I love the quiet, being outside. You can hear the owls and the coyotes. This job is a mixture of education, working with kids, stewardship, and conservation. It is a perfect combination.”

In 2019, Nisqually Land Trust approached Sound View Camp with a deal. The camp’s shoreline provides habitat to support salmon health and recovery, and the land trust wanted to ensure it remained intact. Jeanette Dorner, executive director of the land trust, said that if the camp were sold, a developer could potentially build eight homes on the site.

The land trust received a grant allowing it to pay for the land at market value, form a conservation easement, and eliminate the possibility of further development no matter who owns the land. Two-thirds of the land is in the conservation easement, and the remainder is designated for the camp.

“We learned so much from the land trust about how interesting and unique this beach is,” Houston said. “The property is so incredible with a nearshore complex that includes the long sandy beach, the lagoon, feeder bluffs,  salt marsh, and tidelands.”

The land trust is partnering with the camp to offer “Forage Fish Walk & Talk,” a shoreline education program, and volunteer work parties to remove invasive plants.

“We will find out what works,” Rodriguez said. “Ultimately, our goal is to be used all year round. The winter will always be quieter, but there are buildings that work year-round and could be used for families or retreat groups.”

Sound View recently upgraded four platform tents to tent cabins, making them suitable for year-round use and bringing them up to the standard of the other tent cabins renovated in 2019. Electrical upgrades are planned this fall.

The camp has benefited from the work of AmeriCorps volunteers for several years. “Our team was here until middle February working full-time at Sound View Camp and with the land trust,” Rodriguez said. “Unfortunately, we will not be receiving AmeriCorps teams unless this administration walks back the cuts they made to that program.” (See “AmeriCorps Members Leave Their Mark on Sound View Camp,” KP News, September 2023, and “Worth Their Weight in Gold,” December 2018.)

For more information, go to: www.soundviewcamp.com and www.nisquallylandtrust.org.