Arrowbear Music Camp

Dear Arrowbear Music Camp Families, Alumni, and Friends,

As you may know, Arrowbear is celebrating its 80th year! This is a fantastic milestone, but the camp has also arrived at this joyous occasion facing significant financial challenges.

Due to various circumstances, Arrowbear now needs financial help to recover from a particularly challenging few years. Please consider helping so that the Arrowbear camp experience can continue to be available to current and future young musicians.

The cost of attending camp has been kept intentionally low over the years to make the “Arrowbear Experience” available to as many musicians as possible. And while this gift of affordable tuition is a great thing, many challenges have arisen in recent years that have significantly impacted the camp’s financial resources, and camp tuition alone cannot address these issues.

One challenge is that the cost of maintaining facilities has risen while tuition costs have been intentionally kept low. Another challenge is that fewer campers have been available to attend over time due to school start and end dates shifting—leaving a narrower window of dates that camp can run with full sessions. Also, schools have significantly fewer music program offerings now than in previous generations, resulting in fewer students who can attend a music camp experience. So, Arrowbear has been running with reduced attendance numbers for a while. In addition, COVID closed all camps in the summer of 2020 and forced many to run at reduced capacity in 2021 and 2022. This significantly reduced attendance over these recent three years has accelerated financial challenges for Arrowbear.

Arrowbear needs your financial help to get through this difficult time. Your contributions can help ensure that Arrowbear will be around for the next generation of musicians to enjoy and for alumni to cherish for years to come. No donation is too small. The more funds raised, the easier it’ll be to complete the campers’ living spaces, update the dorm bathrooms and showers, fix electrical work, and more. Of particular note, the iconic green and yellow canvas for the O-Bowl and the camp porch tarp are in dire need of replacement and will cost $10,000. Also, in the winter of 2021, vandals broke the windows on the dorms, another critical maintenance expense that now needs funding.

We want to mention that the Arrowbear Music Associates organization has supported camper attendance over the years. But the camp needs more financial help now, beyond what the Associates can provide through scholarships. This fundraiser is an opportunity for you to directly help address the facilities and upkeep needs of camp property and to help ensure that Arrowbear will be around for the foreseeable future.

The Arrowbear Music Camp community's support has helped keep camp running in many ways for generations. Now, more than any time in camp history, we need the community to help. Thank you for your donations. Please share this message with others through social media, email, or any way you can.

If you have fond memories of your time at camp, or have heard about the fond Arrowbear memories of people important to you… now is the time to consider giving back to this very special place that made those memories possible and to help ensure that current and future generations will have the same opportunity to experience this very special place.

Sincerely,

Diane Shapiro (Arrowbear Alumni)

Thomas Bilodeau (Arrowbear Alumni)

Katherine Nolte (Arrowbear Alumni)