MAKE AN IMPACT
Your support allows youth, families, and adults to grow in confidence and faith through wilderness experiences.
Dear friends,
For six generations, Amnicon has closed every wilderness trip the same way. Campers gather around the fire, look one another in the eye, and offer a blessing that has been passed down since the very beginning: “You are a capable and lovable child of God.”
A Chi-Rho necklace is placed around each camper’s neck, meant to remind them of these truths: you are safe here, you belong here, and God is with you. For every trip you take, another knot is tied in the leather. Some people have as many as 25 knots. Every one of them is a story.
Andrew Heintz has quite a few of his own knots. He grew up at Amnicon. His family came to Amnicon work weekends in the early 1980s. He was a camper, then a volunteer builder, then a wilderness guide for multiple summers in college.
Looking back, Andrew remembers one trip when high winds stranded his group on Stockton Island for nearly three days. The kids wanted off the island badly. They pushed. They suggested the crossing was safe enough. They asked if they could paddle across at night.
Andrew Heintz as a wilderness guide in the 90s.
Even at 19 years old, Andrew was able to hold his ground and prioritize the safety of the entire group. That is exactly the kind of leadership Amnicon teaches.
“The most memorable wilderness trips were some of the most challenging,” he said. “I learned real leadership, not the kind you learn in a classroom. I was in charge and that was a lot of responsibility for a 19-year-old.” Campers were learning lessons of their own, too.
When the weather finally broke, they made the crossing together and the elated feeling of celebrating together is something Andrew remembers to this day. “Life isn’t always perfect. It doesn’t always go to plan,” Andrew emphasized. “The campers learned how to get through it and that we need each other.”
Amnicon is still part of Andrew’s life decades later. He’s served on the Board, comes to volunteer work weekends, and every month, he gives to Amnicon financially.
Not because he has to. Because somewhere in his memory there is a 14-year-old kid on a canoe trip who discovered something true about himself in a hard moment. Andrew knows that kid is still out there, waiting for his turn.
“Giving allows another kid to have that same experience I had,” he explained. That’s why the Red Clay Collective exists.
Right now, 30 households sustain Amnicon through the Red Clay Collective, our community of monthly donors. This summer, we’re growing that community.
Will you join them?
Whether your monthly gift is $5 or $500, it’s meaningful. Your monthly gift becomes part of a much larger community of support, the foundation that keeps Amnicon ready for the next camper, the next guide, the next family who needs grace and growth in wild places.
Forty years from now, another former camper will be telling a story much like Andrew’s. They’ll remember the wind. The canoe. The people beside them. And they’ll remember the blessing that closed every trip: “You are a capable and lovable child of God.”
Thank you for considering a monthly gift to help make that possible.
With peace and gratitude,
Emily Lassiter
Director of Strategic Development
Amnicon Adventures & Retreats
P.S. When you give monthly, your gift goes to work immediately making sure every camper who arrives is welcomed into a community where they belong. Red Clay Collective members receive a mug as a tangible symbol of your place in this community. Join by August 13 and we’ll hand it to you in person at our Gratitude Gathering at Hidden Falls Regional Park in St. Paul, from 4:30 to 6:30pm. We’d love to celebrate you there.