A Quarter of a Million Reasons for Thanks

A QUARTER OF A MILLION... $250,000.... That's how many reasons I have to be thankful for today.

My tiny little camp has about a $500,000 annual budget. Do you know what happens when a check for $250,000 arrives? Um, the camp director pees her pants and then bursts into tears of happiness. And then does cartwheels and calls her mother screaming.

Okay, okay, other than the screaming phone call to my mom, none of those things happened, but it was close. It's possible when the shock wears off and it actually hits me that this happened, I might pee my pants and then burst into tears of joy.

Let me back up...

Yesterday was the Executive Committee meeting. I recapped the summer, we talked about next week's board meeting and then we looked at the budget. Camp has been on a tight budget for years. I joke around that sometimes we have to go through the couch cushions to scrounge around for change in order to make payroll. It's a joke, but it's not that far off.

The Executive Committee was impressed with my ability to cut costs this summer and while we all spoke optimistically about the months ahead, I was still nervous. I worry about the finances of camp more often than I worry about my own. When I first became executive director and really started looking at the budget, one of my first questions to them was, "am I going to have a job one year from now?"

They responded with, "the camp property is worth millions. In theory, we could take out that many loans against the property and we'll run camp until we are flat broke." I'm not a budget expert, but it seemed like a scary outlook. But they were confident about our ability to stay in business and so I try not to lose sleep after each time I see our budget. If they aren't panicking, neither will I.

This semester, the class I am taking is financial management for nonprofits. I HATE talking about financial stuff. My mind goes numb and I immediately start day dreaming about glitter and rainbows and unicorns. I understand that the MAIN job of an executive director is the budget, but given the choice, I would prefer to clean the bathrooms over looking at the budget.

So I presented a 2012 budget, which they liked, but it's sort of more of a theory than an actual budget because in it, I need to recruit roughly 150 more kids next summer. Some days I think that is possible, but some days I think that I might as well have budgeted for a million more kids, because either way, it's never going to happen. But overall, I walked out of the meeting feeling good. This is my dream job and I love every minute of the day and it seems like it will still be my job for at least the next year, so that's a great thing.

On the way into the office this morning, the board president (BP) called me. He told me about some fence materials he had and we chatted for a few minutes. And then he said, "I have good news and bad news." The bad news was that an older gentleman named George died. George was a caretaker of camp years ago. I spoke with him on the phone once. He didn't know who I was or why I was calling and he told me he didn't have any money and that he wasn't dead yet, and then he hung up on me. Connecting with camp alumni is not something I'm very good at.

He passed away in July. The good news- this morning, a check for a quarter of a million dollars arrived to camp. It took me longer than I should admit to translate "a quarter of a million" into actual numbers... $250,000.

"WHAT?!?!" I didn't know what to say or to think and I almost fell over. For a camp of our size and on as tight of a budget as we are, this is like winning the lottery. Over three years of cutting out coupons, scrimping, saving, going without, "making do", debating whether we should call an electrician or just let that building be dark for awhile, wondering if I should offer to skip a paycheck so we can make it until next month when kids register, wondering... no- AGONIZING that the time and effort and love I have poured into this organization was going to end in nothing. And after all of that, to have something so incredible as a quarter of a million dollars drop into our bank account... I still don't believe it.

I've already been asked by several people what I am going to do with the money. My brother suggested personal hovercrafts for all staff, which seems like a really good investment, so I'll probably do some googling on that later. But other than that, I am going to just enjoy being able to pay our bills on time. I am going to take advantage of all of the investment bankers on our board and let them turn that money into more money. I want to be stable, not worry that a broken down camp van or a few too many art supplies are going to push us over the edge. I am so thankful today.