Welcome to the Family Campground at Camp Swatara!

The Family Campground Office reopened on February 1st, and we started taking reservations for 2019 at this time for Church of the Brethren Members only. (See Paragraph 2). Our web site under Family Camp has been updated with a new tab for our 2019 Electronic Family Campground Brochure. We hope to move to this form of electronic communication moving forward into 2020 to save on printing costs and duplication of resource efforts. Please disregard many of the changes made in your 2019 hard copy brochure which was mailed out last week – we apologize for any confusion created by the clerical mistakes.

The Reservation Process is OPEN and accepting on-line Reservation Request Forms. Beginning February 1st at 12 midnight, all Church of the Brethren Members could begin to apply and the process opens to ALL OTHERS beginning at 12 midnight on February 15th. All Reservation Requests will be date and time-stamped, and they will be processed in the order in which they are received. For any questions regarding the Reservation Process, please click HERE for more information or go to our website at campswatara.org and click on the Family Camp tab.

Again, Payment for all groups will be due by April 1, 2019 with one NEW EXCEPTION - for groups booking a reservation for after Labor Day in September or October, payment will be due by August 1, 2019. For all individual reservations, payment will be due at the time of the reservation. Also new for 2019 - to comply with a Berks County Quarantine and PA State Law, our Camp Policies state that there will no longer be any transporting and movement of any cut firewood onto or from Camp Property due to control issues with damaging insects like the Emerald Ash Borer and the Lantern Light Fly. To help ease the pain with this situation, we will be lowering the Price of Firewood from $7.00 to $5.00 per Level Wheelbarrow Load.

We hope that you will plan to come join us during the 2019 camping season! Our family-friendly campground has lots to offer! We have two playgrounds and lots of open space for recreational activities including soccer, softball, basketball, volleyball, 4-square, BMX Bike Trail, shuffleboard and ping pong. We also have an 18-hole Miniature Golf Course and over 5 miles of hiking trails on our 750+ acres. On the Wet ‘n Wild side, we have our own Splash Pad, and we share a Junior Olympic-Sized Swimming Pool with our Resident Youth Campers. Our 4-5 acre lake affords campers the opportunity to go boating and/or fishing, and we carry bait and tackle in our Camp Store. We’re hoping for improved fishing conditions in the lake for 2019 – it appears that the 35 triploid carp which were added last May have been busy “eating up” the algae and duck weed. As we look ahead to Spring, the lake looks much improved and we hope to see continued improvement for the remainder of this year. Church Worship services will again be scheduled for Sunday Mornings at 10:00 AM, beginning the first Sunday in May and running through the end of September. If you have any questions please feel free to call me at our FCC Store Number, 717-933-5244.

Did you know that our Family Campground is just one of the three programs of ministry that we offer here at this location? Camp Swatara also offers a Youth Program in their Residential Camp Center, along with a rental and retreat area to the West of our Family Campground. If you would like more information about these other programs, please explore and investigate our website further or call the Main Office at 717-933-8510, Option #1. We hope that you will find this information to be helpful and that you chose to make Camp Swatara one of your favorite destinations for rest and relaxation, spiritual renewal, and reflection about God’s call upon your lives.

Respectfully,

Your FCC Family Campground Manager(s) - Rick & Sarah Balmer