Success Stories
Boys Town's Camp Okoboji
Boys Town Family vacations to Camp Okoboji are filled with swimming, boating and sunshine as the kids and their family teachers take a well-deserved summertime break — for many, this is the first family vacation they've ever experienced. What they learn from the process, they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. Join one Boys Town family as they experience a family vacation at Camp Okoboji.
Serena: We are on our way to Okoboji!Scott: We a place up at Okoboji, that houses about four to five families at a time. It's right on the beach and allows up to enjoy the time here with the kids, gives us a break away from every day life with the kids. Allows us to enjoy them and have fun. They get to experience what a family vacation can could and should look like maybe for the first time so it's a really great place to build relationships with these kids.
Kim: A typical day at Okoboji involves waking up the girls and coming into breakfast, sitting down as a family and we do that for every meal. After that we will chores and those are assigned and at that point, once everyone is finished then we'll go out to the beach. At that point, you can go out on the boat, you can try a lot of different activities and everyone has something they can do.
Scott: At least once a session out on the beach, we take our girls, just our girls, and we go out on the boat. And we like to have fun with them, and get to experience them and they get to experience each other in a different environment. Sometimes you see different sides of personalities which is really neat.
Kim: In the evening, after we do dinner and chores and we kind of wind down and we all watch a movie in the TV room and have snacks as well and that sort of ends the night. They get up here and realize it's a lot of fun and they realize they can have fun in a healthy and appropriate way with adults and peers that are their own age. Okoboji is one of those traditions that always becomes a very memorable experience for the girls and for us and it really helps to build that relationship with them and those memories come up throughout the year and even beyond the time that they leave our home.
Marissa: It's been awesome so far, it's my first day and I love it.
Serena: I'm having a lot of fun.
Jen: I have a lot of fun.
Group: We love Okoboji!
Top 10 Reasons We Love Camp Okoboji
The trip to Lake Okoboji is the first true family vacation many of our girls and boys have ever had. It’s heartbreaking to know that so many of them have never known the simple joy of just being a kid. That’s why it’s so important that they play and have fun together as part of a family. And summer vacation gives everyone – the kids and their Family-Teachers – an opportunity to relax, unwind and recharge their batteries.
To be sure, none of this would be possible without your generous donations and commitment to helping our children. Because you care so much about our boys and girls, they get to unlock the treasures of summer vacation that so many of them have missed out on. You can support summer at Boys Town in the following ways.
