A Foundation Built By Community
Shiloh Bible Camp & Retreat Center expands its facilities while keeping costs down
By Erik Boe
Whether it’s a sleepaway camp where children form an almost instantaneous bond, or a retreat center focused on teambuilding, the camp environment cultivates and sustains communal relationships. No one understands this better than Shiloh Bible Camp & Retreat Center, where the value of community is literally fundamental to its very foundation. Built using mostly volunteer labor, collaboration had many of Camp Shiloh’s facilities up and running, and a sense of unified purpose continues to drive the organization’s mission.
LAN Associates
The camp and retreat center serves groups of all sizes for overnight stays or day trips. The camp was founded in 1986, and its West Milford, N.J., location is surrounded by thousands of acres of forested state parkland. In the country’s most densely populated state, this beautiful, remote wooded environment provides guests with a rare opportunity for rest and renewal in a secluded area. The camp hosts groups of all ages—typically church youth groups, college groups, or family church groups—for 2- or 3-day weekend retreats. Shiloh offers a variety of activities and amenities designed to foster teambuilding and spiritual growth.
Here We Grow
With the help of volunteers, the camp has continued to expand its offerings, without sacrificing the founder’s vision or the quality of its facilities. In 2013, Shiloh added a new Adventure Center designed around group activities and teambuilding. It includes a gymnasium, large-group meeting room, and game room. The gymnasium houses a regulation basketball court, 40-foot indoor climbing wall, and a high-ropes course suspended from the gymnasium ceiling. The meeting room was designed to seat up to 120 people, and is equipped with the latest technology, a four-sided fireplace, a stage, and a kitchenette.
In 2020, Shiloh expanded its facilities again with the addition of an indoor swimming pool. This building houses a half Olympic-size pool, hot tub with a fireplace, and changing rooms. Upstairs, overlooking the pool, is a group meeting room with a fully equipped sound booth, stage, fireplace, and seating for 60.
So how did Shiloh successfully complete these two major projects using volunteer labor? The center hired LAN Associates, an architecture and engineering firm to design the projects. Firm representatives were able to use designs that factored in the experience level of the workforce.
Tap Into Volunteers’ Skills
Anyone wishing to use volunteers should consider what is and is not within the scope of their skillsets. Shiloh is extremely lucky to have longstanding relationships with many volunteers who are professional tradespeople, such as masons, framers, plumbers, and electricians. Those with specialized skillsets were happy to work alongside the non-professional volunteers to perform the bulk of the work. Shiloh also enjoys a close relationship with another local ministry, Servant’s Heart Ministry (SHM), which specializes in assisting non-profit organizations in completing their construction projects. Staff members and volunteers from SHM were instrumental in the management of the projects.
Know When To Call In The Pros
Regardless of how skilled volunteers may be, it’s important to understand their limitations and to seek out a paid professional to handle specialized parts of the job. For example, Shiloh’s property was encumbered by buffers from nearby wetlands and streams, so placement of new buildings was a challenge. The new indoor-pool facility was no exception. The 50-foot by 80-foot structure was in a small envelope of buildable land between stream buffers and zoning setbacks. A professional land-use team was needed to help Shiloh gain approvals from the local Zoning Board of Adjustment for the pool building and several smaller projects. The same firm assisted in acquiring wetlands approvals from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, soil conservation approvals from the local Soil Conservation District, and all required approvals from the municipality.
The construction of the pool itself was something none of the camp staff members or construction volunteers had much experience with, so Shiloh partnered with a local, professional pool-building company to provide guidance, planning, and advice. For a nominal fee to cover costs, this company was kind enough to work with Shiloh’s volunteers to design and oversee the construction of the pool. For specialized tasks, such as the gunite concrete pool shell and the plaster pool finish, Shiloh hired professional installers.
Use Volunteer-Friendly Designs
Once solutions have been found for jobs the volunteer team can’t do, it’s time to maximize what members can do. This is where careful planning from an architect and engineer will be invaluable. They can create designs using materials and construction techniques that are volunteer-friendly. For example, the pool building was designed to be framed like a residential house, knowing that many of the professional volunteers are residential contractors who are most familiar with wood-framing. Conversely, because of its size and building-code requirements, the gymnasium needed to be constructed of heavy steel, which was much more of a challenge because fewer volunteers were experienced in heavy steel construction.
One of the biggest challenges was the ceiling-suspended adventure course. It needed to be designed and built in collaboration among the building’s architect/engineer, a professional adventure-course builder, and a professional welder—all friends of the ministry. Because of the high standards for safety in the ropes-course industry, professional design and construction of this unique course was important. The building design needed to accommodate the additional loads the course would add to the structure. The suspended platforms were designed to be constructed using off-the-shelf steel components to minimize construction costs. The safety cables and belay points were designed in accordance with industry standards. The construction of the course was overseen by the professional adventure-course builder, with the assistance of volunteer labor that was needed to lift the components into place.
Another good example of volunteer-friendly design is the use of insulated concrete formwork, which was used extensively in both the gymnasium and the pool building. All the concrete foundation work was done using these products, which consist of hollow foam blocks that stack together. Once the concrete is poured, the foam formwork stays and acts as permanent insulation. Using these products had several advantages. First, because the volunteer-built projects tend to take longer, the rental of regular concrete formwork would be very costly, and second, the erection of standard formwork is a specialized skill that would be more difficult to do with volunteers. The insulated concrete forms, however, are comparatively easy to assemble, so after a short learning curve, many volunteers became proficient in the use of these forms.
Volunteer labor can be a great money-saving asset to a camp that is looking to expand, but safety always needs to be paramount. Any tasks that cannot be safely done with volunteer labor need to be left to professionals. When working with a non-profit, many paid professionals will be open to having volunteers assist with certain portions of their tasks to defray costs. On portions of the projects that are volunteer-heavy, however, it is important to keep an appropriate ratio of volunteer trade professionals to non-professional volunteers. This is essential to ensure the quality of the finished product is not compromised.
Erik Boe is a Civil Engineer for LAN’s Facilities Engineering and Site Development Division. As an Assistant Vice President, his responsibilities include design development and permitting for a variety of public and private civil engineering projects. For more information, visit info@lanassociates.com.