Our seven-week summer camp provides wholesome, educational activities for children on free/reduced lunch.

Academic activities serve to reduce the achievement gap while field trips, arts and crafts, outdoor recreation, games and drama fill the summer days with fun and fellowship.

Field trip destinations include the beach, neighborhood pools, Silver Glen Springs, museums, plays and softball games, among others.

Fun, friendship and happy, safe summer memories are created.

Thank You, Sarah Davis! 

Two years ago Stanton High School Junior, Sarah Davis, started volunteering at The Sanctuary on 8th Street.  She came once a week on Monday afternoons.  She helped with homework, played games, made cookies, created art...and fell in love.....with the kids at the Sanctuary.  She wanted to share the love, so she started bringing her friends.  Every Monday the Stanton kids showed up to help out.  Before long grades improved.  reading and math scores got better.  Meaningful relationships were created.  Towards the end of  her second year volunteering at The Sanctuary, Sarah (now a Senior) started hearing the girls talk about Camp Montgomery.  What a great place it was, how much fun it was, how good the food was, how it brought them closer to God.  You see, Camp Montgomery (Montgomery Presbyterian Conference Center) is a church camp on a beautiful lake, near Starke, FL, where we send kids every summer for a week.  In anticipation of that special week the girls were talking and Sarah was listening.  When Sarah approached the staff to get more details she found out that due to funding shortfalls, we could send only 3 girls to Camp Montgomery and 10 girls were eligible to go.  Sarah decided she would REALLY make a difference for kids and she started collecting money to send 7 more girls.  She held a concert and invited all her friends...then she went door to door in her neighborhood and at her church (First Baptist).  It wasn't long before Sarah and friends had raised nearly $2,000.  Sarah's monies plus some special funding from Riverside Presbyterian and South Jacksonville Presbyterian Churches pushed us over the top.  Once again a group of deserving girls from The Sanctuary on 8th Street, will be able to spend a spiritually, emotionally and socially meaningful week in the woods, by the lake, under the stars at Camp Montgomery.  Thank you Sarah Davis!

 Sanctuary Chefs

During Summer Camp 2009, many campers 11 years old and older became entrepreneurs! Under the supervision of camp counselors, they created Sanctuary Chefs, a local lunch catering business. 

The Chefs delivered lunch to customers they solicited from local businesses. Each week, campers asked for orders from their customers, planned a menu, did the shopping, prepared the food and delivered it—all while staying within a budget they set based on the money they made the previous week. The kids decided themselves what to do with the profits!