Bay Cliff renovation coming to life
Bay Cliff renovation coming to life
By MIRIAM MOELLER, Journal Staff Writer
BIG BAY — Bay Cliff Health Camp is getting an extreme makeover and the contractors and workers are volunteers from the Upper Peninsula and lower Michigan.
Fifty members of the U. P. Construction Council and the Local Building Trades and a team of 40 volunteers from Ann Arbor have been helping to construct four duplex cabins for staff and their families at the Bay Cliff Health camp for children with physical disabilities.
This is part of the camp’s renovation and expansion project to winterize Bay Cliff facilities, so programs can be offered there year-round. The project will also bring the camp into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
“It’s a real example of people from across the U.P. and even lower Michigan pulling together their abilities to make this project happen for the kids,” said camp director Tim Bennett.
The project began when Bennett received phone calls from University of Michigan athletic director Bill Martin and John Siller, a retired contractor in Ann Arbor.
“Both of these gentlemen were born and raised in the Copper Country, and they came to us and offered to rough construct the cabins,” Bennett said.
They and their volunteers came up in fall 2005 and this spring to put up the frames or shells of the buildings all on their own time and expenses.
“Once the shell was up, we came in,” said Tony Retaskie, UPCC executive director.
Also on their own time and at their own expense, Retaskie and his crew of apprentices, retirees and other volunteers have been working on the electrical, mechanical, and plumping components of the cabins on weekends and after their regular work hours.
Retaskie said that this project is a great opportunity for the apprentices to learn skills.
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But time and knowledge weren’t the only things donated to this project. Bennett said the hardwood floors in all four cabins were donated by Horner Flooring in Dollar Bay.
The buildings are located near the entrance of the camp and provide eight living units for the camp’s professional staff such as therapists, nurses, dentists and teachers and their families according to Bennett.
“We have not had the housing for married staff and families,” Bennett said. “This will be a tremendous improvement in helping us successfully recruit the staff we need to serve the children.”
Bay Cliff is in the third year of a capital campaign to renovate its facilities. So far the camp has raised $5 million of its $7.2 million goal. The money funded renovations of the dining hall, the program auditorium and office complex and the girls housing unit. It also funded the new construction of a housing unit for boys in wheelchairs, a wheelchair accessible trail to Lake Superior and the four new duplexes for staff that will be completed by the end of the year.
“We are hoping that our next project will be a new housing unit for boys,” Bennett said.
Those wishing to contribute to the Bay Cliff Building to the Future Campaign or get more information can call the camp at 906-345-9314 or visit their Web site at www.baycliff.org/capcam.php
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