With the 98th annual God’s Holiness Grove Camp Meeting now sadly in our rearview mirrors, some are looking ahead to next year’s event (Kingswood University President and longtime Wesleyan pastor Dr. Steven Lennox has been announced as the evangelist for 2018) and excitement builds for the 2019 camp meeting … which will mark the camp’s 100th year.
The camp started in the summer of 1920 in Shamokin Dam at a campground where the Monroe Marketplace now stands. This past week, Dr. David Babb shared a photo taken at the very first camp meeting … the image you can check out attached to this article. If you know who some of the people are in the image — and especially if you think you are related to anyone in the photo — please let us know as we prepare for the 100th celebration.
Since the first encampment, there has been a long history of family tradition at the camp meeting events — both at the Shamokin Dam camp and now at the Central Pennsylvania Wesleyan Campground near New Columbia.
To help honor that longstanding tradition, a 100th anniversary quilt is being planned. Families are encouraged to share a pictures for a family square in the quilt. Only pictures taken of your family in the camp setting will be used.
Marilyn Appel is coordinating this project. You can send images to her via email by clicking here or by sending them to 213 Cornell Road, Glassboro, NJ 08028. Pictures that are sent can be returned if you let Marilyn know you want them back.
In addition, if you have neat or funny or inspiring stories from camp meetings past that you’d like to share, please share them via email by clicking here. We’d love to tell others via our website and other projects about the moments that have helped create your family’s longstanding traditions with the camp.