Opequon Quaker Camp
Ages 9-14
Harpers Ferry, WV
17100 Quaker Lane
Sandy Spring, MD 20860
301-774-7663
info@bymcamps.org
Opequon Quaker Camp is a residential camp designed to unleash your camper’s creative spirit. By exposing campers to many different art forms in a fun and physical way, Opequon strives to highlight the connections between creation, nature, self-expression, and spirituality.
A camper’s time at Opequon is structured around our morning Art Workshops. At the beginning of each workshop cycle, campers choose from an array of different options – from life-size mural painting to movie making – that they’ll focus on for a three day period. Each cycle culminates in a camp-wide Art Walk, a celebration of community and creativity where every workshop gets to share their creations with the entire camp. Afternoons and evenings are very busy, as the campers choose from a variety of games, crafts, or environmental activities. Each session also includes one age and ability-appropriate trip away from camp, where campers spend one to two days living in the wilderness and strengthening their bonds with the members of their cabin.
2025 Session Information
As with the other residential camps, Opequon operates in three different two-week sessions:
Saturday, June 28 – Saturday, July 12
Kindling Session A, June 28 – July 5
Sunday, July 13 – Saturday, July 26
Sunday, July 27 – Sunday, August 10
Kindling Session B, July 27 – August 3
Drop Off: 2-4pm of the first day of each session
Pick Up: 10am-12pm of the last day of each session.
You may come at the start of pick up to join campers at the Fire Circle for singing and Meeting.
Please take note of whether you have a Saturday or Sunday drop off/pick up as each session is different.
Life at Camp
Opequon Quaker Camp is located on a beautiful mountainside where campers play and explore during the day, and bunk together at night in screened-in cabins. And each day is designed to give your camper the freedom to find themselves and be themselves. As mentioned, campers will usually go on a one or two night overnight trip during their session, but their in-camp days look like this…
Morning:
After the wake-up bell is struck at 7:45am, campers gather for an all-camp breakfast. Once campers have helped clean up after breakfast, the camp community comes together for silence and stillness at the Fire Circle. The rest of the morning is spent in whichever three-day Art Workshop each camper is currently signed up for, diving into anything from dance to woodworking.
Afternoon:
The full camp comes back together for lunch, after which campers get an hour-long rest period to read, relax, and play quiet games. During Afternoon Activity, campers move freely around the camp, joining one of the many artsy, physical, or nature-oriented activities being led by counselors and staff.
Night:
Following dinner and dinner cleanup, the whole camp comes together again for Evening Activities such as Jugs, paper bag skits, or scavenger hunts. Then, tired from a long day of exercising their minds and bodies, our campers retire to their cabins for their 9:30pm bedtime.
Opequon Staples
Trips
Each cabin goes out on a one to two night trip either away from camp or in our woods or by the Creek. Designed to be accessible for all, these overnights build community, promote healthy risk taking, and push campers within their abilities.
Art Workshops
Workshop options vary from session to session, but campers always enjoy a wide range of options, such as songwriting, theater, puppet making, creative writing, dance, building structures, bread making, and so much more.
Physical Activities
After a morning of focusing on their art, campers can get physical by joining games ranging from soccer and volleyball, to zanier camp offerings like Frazleeram, Ga-ga-ga, and running charades.
Water Activities
Whether it’s splashing around in the pool or taking a swim in Opequon Creek, campers have no shortage of ways to beat the afternoon heat, with certified lifeguards always present.
Artsy Activities
Campers have further options to get crafty in the afternoon through activities like tie-dye, friendship bracelets, knitting/crochet, face-painting, baking, etc.
Environmental Activities
Campers can also spend their afternoons exploring the outdoors through counselor-led day hikes, bird-watching, stream-wading, etc.
Jared Wood, Director, Opequon (he/him)
Jared Wood, Director of Opequon, is a lifelong educator and artist, committed to the work of learning about our differences so that we can, in his words, “learn to love each other more precisely”. Jared was a camper, Counselor, G-Staff, and Trip Leader at Catoctin, Opequon, and Teen Adventure. He was a Teaching Artist with the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia for a decade, is currently an Art Teacher at Germantown Friends School, and is a Board Member with Reconstruction, Inc. Jared comes to Opequon and BYM Camps with his vision of creating spaces where “people from disparate backgrounds can engage in dialogue, reflection, and making that moves us past the destructive ideas we’ve inherited to the collective love, brilliance, and liberation we all deserve”.
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