One the area’s best values will soon be offering its services to local children, for the 74th year.

Organizers with Fitch Camp are currently accepting registration forms for Dowagiac children in second through seventh grades interested in attending during the upcoming summer season, which begins on June 22. As in previous years, the cost of attendance is just a single dollar a day, which includes meals and transportation.

Operating since 1841, Fitch Camp provides Dowagiac kids a chance to enjoy the outdoors in a safe, educational setting. Activities for this season include tennis, volleyball, scooter hockey, kickball, softball and crafts. Kids attending the campgrounds will also have a chance to swim, canoe and fish on Cable Lake, where the camp is located by.

“The lakes are a large blessing to the community, but often they’re not available to young people in the local school system,” said Jerry Hannapel, president of the E. Root Fitch Foundation and longtime support of the camp. “This gives them the opportunity to use the natural beauty of the lake.”

Supervising the activities this summer will be a group of 10 counselors, who are high school or college students from the Dowagiac area, who often have an interest in pursuing teaching, Hannapel said.

“We look at it as a working scholarship,” he said. “We pay them a little more than what the rest of the market usually does.”

The camp usually has between 80 to 100 children attend every summer, Hannapel said.  The students can either be dropped by parents or picked up by bus from Kincheloe Elementary School, Justus Gage Elementary School, Patrick Hamilton Elementary School, Dowagiac Middle School, St. John’s Day Care and Eagle’s Woods Apartments.

Students who have completed second, third, and fourth grades in the 2014-2015 school year can attend each Monday and Wednesday, from June 22-July 29, and students who completed fifth, sixth, and seventh grades in the 2014-2015 school year can attend Tuesdays and Thursdays, from June 23-July 30th.  Students who have completed fifth grade this year are eligible to come all days.

Registration forms are available at school offices or on the Dowagiac Union Schools website. For more information or to make a monetary donation to the organization, call Chris Cox at 424-5457 or Jerry Hannapal of Hannapal Home Center at 782-7788.