Camp Kawartha is pleased to announce the addition of two brand new handmade apple presses at our Environment Centre and Main Site! To celebrate these great new pieces we hosted a Cider Festival at the Environment Centre on September 26th, 2014. It was a beautiful day and a great success with over 120 partners and community members coming out to enjoy some fresh cider and to try their hand at pressing their own. The Cider Festival was also a great opportunity to celebrate and honour the work and collaboration that was put into the creation of these Cider Presses. We wanted to share a bit of how these presses came to be and how they are a great example of the community coming together and supporting each other and our local youth.
The presses were built by youth involved with The John Howard Society of Peterborough. With the help and supervision of Dave Sharpe (cabinetmaker) and with the support of Graham Petty of The John Howard Society, the Apple Presses were created. The idea was to build these presses for Camp Kawartha but to begin they would need to raise some money. To raise funds for the apples presses, youth sold blue bird houses they constructed and sold out of the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre and around the community. The youth were paid $1 for every birdhouse they built to keep them motivated and to encourage problem solving skills to enable them to work together as an efficient team. They raised over $1,500 by selling these bird houses. These proceeds went into maintaining the workshop and buying materials for the youth to complete personal projects. These funds will continue to support woodshop projects for youth into the future.
Three of the youth applied to the United Way Youth Advisory Committee, a section of the United Way made up of youth volunteers. They were approved and given a $500 grant to cover weekly stipends during the construction of the two apple presses.
During the construction of the apple presses, Dave and the youth had to shop around for the best price on the metal pieces required for the presses, but were unable to find anything that fit within their budget. After searching around they then approached the automotive teacher at Holy Cross Secondary School, Kirk Campbell, who had previously taught two of the youth. Kirk had two of his Grade 12 welding students create the metal parts in class for free.
They put everything together and created these great apple presses, which will now be used at Camp Kawartha and the Camp Kawartha Environment Centre. During this process Graham managed to co-ordinate with two local 
Peterborough high schools to have them grant the youth involved in the project co-op credits for their time spent in the workshop; two of the youth have now successfully completed these credits!
We are very excited to use the presses to teach school groups and the community about the importance of local foods. In speaking with the youth creators they were very glad to hear that their projects were going to be used at our two Centres to give younger kids an opportunity to be outside and connecting with nature and the bounties it offers.
They remarked that the “Cider Festival was a great day for Camp Kawartha and the community, but a bad day for local apples.” I think anyone who came out could agree, a very bad day for the apples but a delicious one for those who came out to enjoy some Cider!
We are so happy to be the proud owners of these beautiful presses and amazed by the hours of work that the youth, Dave and Graham put in to make this happen, in addition to the support that the community has been able to give them along the way.
