Silver Lake announces closure; future unclear

SHARON — Silver Lake Camp and Retreat Center, a long-running summer camp affiliated with the United Church of Christ that has operated for 68 years, will be “winding down” programming after a final summer in 2026.

The Southern New England Conference of the UCC, the branch of the denomination that has overseen the camp since the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences joined in 2020, announced on its website last month that the decision was due to financial strain.

A June 2025 report by consulting firm Kaleidoscope Inc. states that the camp has run sizable deficits in the past three years: $272,676 in 2022; $129,482 in 2023; and $355,018 in 2024.

The Southern New England Conference’s statement points to declining enrollment alongside rising costs as a cause for the challenges. “In recent times, as church attendance has declined, so has the number of families sending their children to overnight Christian camps,” it reads. “Ten years ago, there were 950 summer campers; in 2024, there were 250. Simultaneously, costs – in particular insurance for such a sprawling, waterfront site – have skyrocketed.”

Keeping the camp open for one more summer will be costly, the announcement said, but it will allow for what Southern New England Conference Board Chair Persephone Hall called a “tender transition.”

The Kaleidoscope report did not recommend an all-out closure, but rather that the camp pivot towards conferences and retreats and operate at a deficit in the interim to try and close the financial gaps.

The directors and UCC officials, though, felt that the shift in focus would not fit within the facility’s mission and opted to end operations, instead directing funding and energy towards other youth ministry programming.

For Silver Lake’s final summer hosting campers, Tim Hughes, who has held many roles at the camp over the past five decades including co-directing alongside his wife Anne from 2003 to 2015, will return to take over leadership. The current director, Rev. David Camphouse, will leave the post this month.

As for what’s next for the lakefront property off Low Road, the Southern New England Conference indicated that it would review purchase offers, prioritizing those from entities with a connection to the camp.

Rev. Chris Davies, Executive Minister for Programs and Initiatives for the Conference, said in the November announcement: “We don’t yet know what the future will hold, but we are committed to exploring faithful possibilities aligned with our missional impact and theological commitments.”

After the closure announcement, concerned alumni and affiliates of the camp formed an independent nonprofit called Friends of Silver Lake. According to its website, the mission of the organization is “uniting the dispersed community that values Silver Lake, and working toward a vision of future ministry in line with its historic mission.”

On Sunday, Dec. 7, more than 50 former campers joined a virtual meeting hosted by the nonprofit on Zoom. In a recap post on the organization’s Facebook page Sunday night, Co-Chair Brian Lapis is quoted: “Tonight’s gathering shows how profoundly Silver Lake has shaped the lives of those who have experienced it and how important outdoor ministry is to faith formation, personal growth, leadership development, and just making better humans. These ‘thin places’ between us and the holy that are experienced in outdoor ministry are for real!”