PDA partnership with Camp and Conference Centers moves forward
Great progress has been made in partnering in new and expanded ways with other ministries of the church. Expanding the understanding of our centers to be resources—centers for mission and ministry, if you will—presents an opportunity to better serve our denomination and congregations.
After years of planning, our partnership with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) is coming to fruition. A disaster-response truck and trailer has been delivered to Bethelwoods, making it the first regional response training site in South Carolina.
Rick Turner, a PDA representative, says, “Establishing regional partners with our PC(USA) sites greatly expands the ability of PDA to respond to disasters. “
For years, Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center in Little Rock, Ark., has served as a model and strong PDA partner as a storage facility, call center, and deployment base for PDA.
The office of Camp and Conference Ministries has been working with selected regional PC(USA) centers to establish training centers to meet three needs of PDA: (1) to develop a cadre of trained responders in the event of disaster, (2) to enable PDA trailers and other response materials to be stored and ready for deployment at regional centers, (3) to transfer vehicles no longer useful for disaster assistance to the camp conference ministry site.
“Using this model of partnership makes it easy to see our camp and conference centers supporting a variety of other ministries,” says Brian Frick of Camp and Conference ministries. “I’m so excited to see the wonderful resources we have in our camp and conference centers being used in new and creative ways!”
