Camp Siloam raised $4,855 through a Facebook fundraiser to alleviate the costs of damage suffered from the tornadoes that struck Siloam Springs on Oct. 21 and the summer storms that came through the city on June 23.
The fundraiser started on Dec. 3 and ended Dec. 7 according to Victoria Deitzer, administrative assistant for the camp.
The purpose of the fundraiser was to cover the two insurance deductibles from the claims filed for the damage from the June storms and the October tornadoes, according to Jason Wilkie, camp director. Each deductible was $10,000, something the camp had difficulty coming up with on its own, he added.
"Whenever you make a claim there's the first $10,000 they're not going to reimburse, so basically we have $20,000 worth of damage and cleanup that we didn't budget for and that we're going to have to absorb that cost," Wilkie said. "So we are asking our friends who love camp to help us absorb that cost of repairs essentially and helping us with that deductible."
The goal of the fundraiser was for the $20,000 to cover both deductibles, Wilkie said. The camp itself suffered $151,000 in damages during the June storms where 30 trees fell, Wilkie said. The camp had three key structures damaged, including the Diamond Inn which had six trees fall through it, he said. The camp director said they had just finished repairing the Diamond Inn when the tornadoes hit Siloam Springs on Oct. 21.
"It was discouraging to have just cleaned up from the June 23 storms and to have this come through again," Wilkie said.
The damage from the tornadoes was more severe, he said. The tornado caused 100 trees to fall which damaged seven of the camp's buildings and caused major structural damage to three of those seven buildings, he said.
The three buildings that suffered structural damage were the camp's office, which had a tree fall through the roof, the Moose bunkhouse where a tree also fell through its roof, and the camp's new dining hall where the roof was lifted up and set back down, Wilkie said.
When the roof was set down on the dining hall it, cracked and crushed the drywall where the metal connects to the roof. Presently, Wilkie does not have the final numbers for the amount of damage caused by the tornadoes, but is estimating about $215,000 in damages. Wilkie said the camp's insurance carrier sent an engineer to inspect the bunk house and the dining hall and is waiting for estimates from the engineer on those buildings.
The camp was not short of help when it came time to clean up, Wilkie said. Volunteers came in from the neighboring camp New Life Ranch, JBU men's basketball team, who came out to help for a day and the Arkansas Baptist Association, according to Wilkie. The Arkansas Baptist Association plans on sending another team down later in the week, Wilkie said.
Despite the damage, Camp Siloam will open next year, Wilkie said. He said they are planning another fundraiser to replace two of their bunkhouses that were at the end of their life cycle (one of those bunkhouses was the Moose bunkhouse that was damaged during the tornadoes), and possibly build a small recreational lake on the property to provide more activities for campers. Wilkie said the campaign goal is about $3 million dollars.
General News on 12/11/2019