Covenant News

Covenant Pines Bible Camp Opens New Dining Hall

McGREGOR, MN (May 9, 2002) - Covenant Pines Bible Camp, located in the Northwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, recently opened a 12,000-square-foot new dining hall that will accommodate 375 guests.

The recent opening highlighted Covenant Pines Bible Camp's "Preparing for the Next Generation" campaign, which began in 1999 and has raised nearly $2 million. In addition to the dining hall, the campaign funded two new youth cabins and a guesthouse.

J.W. Anderson and Associates of Minneapolis designed the new facility. The new facility serves youth campers in one section and family campers in another, with the kitchen and dishwashing facilities in the center.

"Being able to separate family campers from youth campers allows us to host multi-generational events simultaneously," said Executive Director Bruce Peterson. Peterson, who has served at Covenant Pines for more than 25 years, remembers when the old 1950's dining hall was built. "We'd outgrown the old dining hall decades ago," he observed. "We've known for a very long time that we needed a new dining hall with larger capacity, but it wasn't until we hired a capital campaign consultant . . . that we had a plan for moving forward with the expansion plan."

"The excitement has been to receive support directly from the camp's constituency (campers and their families) for the first time", said Dan Lillestrand, campaign coordinator and former camp board chairperson. "It's bound to lead to future growth of this ministry as we are now able to inform camp's donors of growth needs in a systematic way."

For more information about the activities at Covenant Pines, call 218-768-2610.

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