Friends Of San Jose Family Camp

Howdy Folks!

The June, July, and August Board meetings are traditionally held at *Stanleys* Grill and Bar, the food outlet at the Ice Hockey Rink right around the corner from Kelly Park.
Upstairs, we get the private room off to the side across from the Air Hockey tables. Just ask if you can’t easily find us.

Meeting starts officially at 7- get there a little early and have a soft drink on us.

Should you wish to mesh our calendar with your own Google Calendar, our calendar is public at :  v8j368sfersle1javk506uihgo@group.calendar.google.com

March 23d was a special day for us at Friends- our wonderful camp manager was the guest speaker at the San Jose Womans Club.

Her 1 hour talk “Women in the Wild” was a wonderful discussion on her life and how she has become the animal expert and camp manager in San Jose.

Jenna brought 3 animals to show the large crowd Thursday evening after her informal discussion.
The evening started with a whine and appetisers social before our guest of honor spoke.

All of us at Friends of Camp are so very proud and deeply indebted to this wonderful woman and her expertise taking care of our camp and working with us! THANK YOU!

This year we have a new outreach board to use when talking to folks about camp.Please come help us spread the word about the wonderful friends, fun, and family moments we have at Family Camp. Let’s make sure EVERY family has a chance to come up to the Sierra’s and have some smores with us!

Our normally wonderful site at Kelly Park is unavailable this month, so we are meeting at our alternative happy place. We have the back room reserved for our 7PM meeting this month. PLEASE feel free to come on down and hang out with us. We love new faces. And drinks are on us.

Members of “The Friends” are a pretty lucky bunch of folks. Not only do we volunteer during the winter here in town, raising money, doing outreach,  hosting the BBQ Night, and setting up our plans for spring, but once the snows are gone, we get to go to CAMP!

Volunteers before or after the regular season stay in their choice of empty available cabins while they are up helping to set up, clean, repair, and add to the basics camp offers. During the season, we are also up at camp. Volunteers use our “Friends” tents at the end of camp and help out in the kitchen, serve meals, clean up areas, assist the staff when they need help, and also promote Friends with our Saturday Wine and Cheese outreaches when possible. We supplement staff when needed for special events and we host our own end of year camping weekend just for Friends that have volunteered that season.

Most work weekends we are done early enough to run into Yosemite and enjoy the scenery

There is nothing quite like a weekend in the mountains. Come join us.

Jan and Feb we had 2 wonderful opportunities to meet new friends and talk about camp at Bass Pro Shops San Jose store. As our latest sponsors we are very happy to have them on board!

This year’s “season opener”, the Friends “Friendraiser” and Back to Camp Night on January 28th at Kelly Park was HUGE! We have YOU all to thank for it.

We  started out once again with our portable Friends Tent leading the way to fun in the mountains.

We had an INCREDIBLE turn out this year and really were overwhelmed with all the folks who LOVE camp and came out to help us start 2017.

We had almost double the number of earlybird codes given out, and saw so many happy friends.

Our Camp Manager Jena helped us at every step of the way and ran games as well as clearing the path for us to be in the Yokahama Room that night, We had the  Whitneys talking to members and helping folks sign up for work weekends,  George Schoenherr taught the next generation how to pan for gold, and the band as excellent!

Outdoors was BBQ for SMores time that gave the kids plenty of sugar to head home with!

George explains just how rich a young person can get with just a little bit of effort out in the icy rivers of the Sierras.

We taught campers how to make their own name tags out natural materials with the help of the wonderfully artistic Helen Rice and her wonderful husband Rich.

By attending the event, not only did guests have dinner on us, but the special early sign up code came with the package!

Board member Jose Contrearas and retired camp manager Tom Borup supervised the technical magic of Pat Allen at the BBQ. It takes a lot of experience to make a great burger.

Board members helped out with potato salad and special serving techniques.

Rusti Icenogle was our Drawing Chair and she did a WONDERFUL job!

Special awards were given out to our esteemed Senior members by the City Mayor Sam Liccardo and a great City Councilman Johnny Khamis who have both supported our camp enthusiastically and completely.   Our Wildlife program that Jena created brought in some very special visitors to share the evening and show our younger members what kinds of wild life they can meet when they come up to camp.

Family fun and cheap eats are always a hallmark of bringing families together.

We campers will take the campfire circle anywhere, anytime, any way we can get it! Every year, Friends hosts a “Friendraiser Camp Warm Up”  where people can plan their camping vacations with their neighbors, hook up with friends they have made in the past, the kids can get excited for the fun that is coming and we all get a little taste of the magic we look forward to every year at San Jose Family Camp.

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Work Party Forman is Jose Contreras for questions, 408-502-0216.

We are signing folks for parties NOW and if you want instant updates make sure we have your current email address.

Send those to DBSHollis@aol.com for immediate inclusion on our mail lists.

Anyone who volunteers at our outreaches or work weekends is invited to our Thank You Weekend at the end of the season!