Opequon Quaker Camp
Opequon Quaker Camp (OQC) is a Quaker, residential, wilderness summer camp operated by Baltimore Yearly Meeting for children aged 9-14. The camp focuses on Quaker values of simplicity, equality, and understanding. Campers come from one to four weeks during the summer. They are organized into age and ability appropriate groups or "units" as well as "affinity groups" made up of campers from multiple units. The base camp is located near Clear Brook, Virginia off of Brucetown Road.
History
Founded in 1998 as "Quaker Arts Camp" and originally held on the campus of the Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Maryland, the camp moved in 2000 to its present location near Clear Brook on property leased by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting from a local family. Maintaining much of the earlier camp's artistic focus, Opequon adopted a camping tradition similar to the other BYM programs.
Facilities
The camp property is the site of 3 pavilions, 8 camper cabins, 2 bathhouses, a handful of sheds and staff cabins, and a kitchen facility.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting has been operating summer camps in the region since the 1920s. Other camps currently operated by BYM include Shiloh Quaker Camp, near Charlottesville, Virginia; Catoctin Quaker Camp, near Frederick, Maryland; and the Teen Adventure Program, near Lexington, Virginia.