Camp Roger wins $25K Makeover

Camp Roger has won the $25,000 “Extreme Office Technology Makeover”! This makeover will give Camp Roger totally new technology in their office, replacing their pieced together system. The makeover includes an IBM server, four workstations with LCD monitors, one notebook computer, a 3Com five user phone system, five Microsoft Office 2007 licenses, a firewall, anti-virus software, and installation services.

i3 Business Solutions and the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce sponsored the makeover. Entries were judged on current business pains and how new technology would increase productivity. It was hard to select a winner!

Therefore, i3 and the GR Chamber landed on three finalists:

  • Camp Roger
  • Vierson Boiler & Repair
  • Water Wizard

On Tuesday, January 15th, at the Grand Rapids Chamber’s annual meeting, Mike Ritsema, i3 President presented the award to the winner. Jeannie Englehart, Chamber Executive Director, pulled a card at random and Mike announced that the winner was Camp Roger!

Since 1941, Camp Roger has been providing overnight summer camp experiences for young people. Today, the woods of Camp Roger are active year-round. Through its Discovery Nature Center, Adventure Course, and facility rentals, thousands of young people and adults visit Camp Roger each year. Camp Roger's mission is to reveal and celebrate God's love for God's children through experiences in God's world.

Camp Roger’s application said in part “As a non-profit organization, we have been forced to walk a fine line. We struggle with finding the balance of buying equipment that will allow us to get by, while at the same time be good stewards of donated funds. This is why we find ourselves using a system that is pieced together, often unreliable, and much slower than what we need.”

“It was hard to narrow the candidates down and we read some great stories,” says Ritsemsa. However, we are thrilled that a local non-profit organization could benefit from our contest. It's practically a fairybook tale that I, who attended Camp Roger 30 years ago, presented the award to the current camp directors who met at the camp decades ago - and married!

Work has already begun on planning for the execution of the technology makeover. To learn more about Camp Roger, visit www.camproger.org .