Help Us Rebuild Camp Osborn (BSA)

This is what Camp Osborn looked like the day after the first tornado (above.) Click here to see the whole photo album on our Facebook Page (over 150 pictures.)


Here's an aerial view taken by a drone (see photo album above first)
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This video gives you a different perspective from the one you got looking at the photo album above it.
When you watched the video you may have wondered about the brown on top of the buildings.  Well, yes, that is MUD on the tops of those buildings. And thosee trees on top of some of them are the ones you saw in the photos. Remember, what you saw in the video was also just after the first storm. Out of 56 buildings, only two were untouched by the tornados. Here's the story.

In January of 2017 two tornados, almost a month apart, hit the Camp Osborn Scout Reservation in southwestern Georgia near the cities of Albany and Sylvester. (The Drone video above was made the day after the first tornado, a category 1 or 2, hit on January 2.)

What made the first tornado even more terrifying was that there were scouts camping on the reservation that night directly in the storm's path! (See the pictures and read about it.)

The second tornado, a three-mile-wide category 5, hit on January 21. As Eric Ginter, the camp ranger said, "The second storm took out what the first one left."

Just because a building wasn't flattened doesn't mean it was not destroyed. It will take an estimated $350,000 just to recover from the building damages at the camp. Insurance and grants will certainly help, but that won't do the whole job. We need the help of people like you, who appreciate the value of Scouting to our community and our country.

This camp on the 827 acre Boy Scout Reservation will never be the same as it was. But that doesn't mean it can't be even better! It will take lots of work and money, but the results will be worth it. Remember, we recovered from the tornado of 1998. We can do it again!


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For almost 80 years this amazing place has helped provide a solid base of the  Boy Scout values for the development of literally thousands of American boys to become outstanding leaders. Our grandparents' generation built it. We can rebuild it.

SEE A HISTORY OF CAMP OSBORN IN PICTURES

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*********** IMPORTANT NOTE ***************
All money withdrawn from this fund is directly deposited into the bank account for Camp Osborn Restoration efforts. Matt Hart, the Scout Executive of South Georgia Council - BSA has sole authority to withdraw funds.
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TAKE A TOUR (no narrative - none needed) of the Scout reservation by "dash-cam".  The video was made in late July of 2017, about six months after the tornadoes hit. I was there two months later and took basically the same drive. The video didn't prepare me for actually being there, but I was sure glad I had seen it.


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Hi. I'm Jim Davis, the organizer of this fund raiser. 

I live in New Market, Tennessee.  But I grew up on a southwest Georgia peanut farm and worked on the farm most of the summer from the time I was 13.  One exception was the week I got to spend at Camp Osborn (from 1957 to 1962) earning most of the merit badges required for Eagle Scout. And learning-by-doing lots of other really great stuff I couldn't do anywhere else.

I'm 72 years old now and I've lived in East Tennessee for over 50 years (still on a farm.) But I'm still tied to South Georgia - by Camp Osborn, friends, and the farm country I grew up in. I've been an Eagle Scout since 1962. (Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.)

I owe that to my parents. my best friend Dewitt Web (also Eagle,) my Scoutmaster, Dick Young, and to all those weeks I spent at Camp Osborn. I LOVE Camp Osborn!

THANK YOU!

Jim Davis