Canonicus Camp and Conference Center

Address: 54 Exeter Road, PO Box 330
Exeter, RI 02822-0330 Phone: (401) 294-6318 Fax: (401) 2946318 Email: camp@canonicus.org Website: http://www.canonicus.org/

Canonicus is owned and operated by the American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island (ABCORI). We have over 300 acres of fields, for-est, and lake for our campers to explore and enjoy. We welcome children and youth from a variety of backgrounds and experiences including children who don’t go to church at all. In fact, on average, only about half of our campers indicate an affiliation with a church. Of the campers who attend church, they come from Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, and Independent churches. Our staff is made up of Christian young adults who are enthusiastic about working with children and youth in the outdoors. The selec-tion process includes references from their pastor and two others, and a criminal background check. Their training includes topics such as: emergency procedures, program goals & objectives, child de-velopment, leadership and behavior management. There is no ex-perience comparable to the camp experience. It can’t be replicated in a school cafeteria or play-ground. Camp is a living laboratory where you can challenge yourself, grow in self-confidence, and experience friendship on a whole new level. Please check out the American Camp Association website for lots of relevant articles on this subject (www.acacamps.org). All of our programs are based on the same basic model. Campers are assigned to a small group which is like their “family” for the week. They will do all their activities together with their counselor. Within this small group they participate in the decision-making process about what they will schedule each day. We offer many tradi-tional camp activities such as: boating, swimming, arch-ery, cookouts, campfires, crafts, nature hikes, singing, waterslide, field games, non-traditional games, and low ropes course. All of our campers have the opportunity to participate in these activities during the week. Some of our programs offer a unique focus, these are called “specialty camps.” These programs include Horse Camp, Archery Camp, Cooking Camp, and so on. These par-ticular programs have time set aside for this unique ac-tivity, but still operate like our basic camps. Ultimately, this approach allows for maximum relation-ship skill building between campers in the small group and their counselor. It also means that no two weeks can be the same!