DOOR COUNTY CAMP APPLIES FOR CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT - PRESS RELEASE
DOOR COUNTY, WI – Monday, March 9, 2020
Camp Zion, a year-round Christian camp that provides respite and enrichment for children, adults, and families, has applied for a conditional use permit (CUP) to construct a new dining commons serving campers and the community.
Camp Zion has called Door County home since 1946 and has become a beloved and integral fixture in the northern peninsula. Children and youth, their parents, adult and special needs campers, volunteers and staff all return again and again to Door County, frequenting local restaurants, shops, and businesses, contributing to the local community and economy.
The present aging dining hall, completed in 1986, is no longer adequate. The Camp’s kitchen, as every homemaker knows, needs efficient, up-to-date appliances, layout and décor. Mealtimes are as essential to the Camp Zion family as they are to any other family. Special meals with special people in a special place build relationships and memories that last lifetimes. The new dining commons will be that special place.
Over the past several years, the Camp has sought wisdom and counsel from local and state governments, engineering and architectural professionals, citizens, donors, and campers. This collective wisdom has produced plans for desperately needed dining and meeting spaces in a beautiful facility that is both state-of-the art and in harmony with the Northwoods character of other Camp Zion buildings, the surrounding community, the Town of Liberty Grove, and Door County.
As a religious Institutional Recreation Camp, Camp Zion seeks a CUP required by the County Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, issued in a manner consistent with the Camp’s religious nature. For a longtime community member like the Camp, the CUP is a necessary step in its ongoing efforts to update and improve facilities that are critical in providing campers the same exceptional activities, programs and experiences offered by similar camps throughout Wisconsin and across America. Camp Zion is eager to work together to craft reasonable and responsible solutions to any concerns regarding this wonderful addition to Door County.
Why here? Why now?
In an age when the mega-techs assure us that we’re getting more “connected,” the reality is we’re becoming more isolated. We are saddened as we see young people buried in their media, with only a handful of “friends”, captured by platforms intentionally designed to keep them bouncing from one distraction to another - more and more self-absorbed, less and less able to know and enjoy the people, the world, the beauty, and the God all around them.
The last few weeks, with “social distancing” now official policy, we are burdened more than ever. This panic will pass, and when it does, we pray we will be able to create a truly special place where people – especially young people - can slow down, unplug, and spend a few desperately needed, undistracted days getting to know themselves, their families, their friends, and their God.