The Rainbow Council Boy Scout Camp in rural Morris, Illinois is a 755-acre camp that has been serving Boy Scouts from four surrounding states for over 30 years. The camp offers recreational facilities and merit badge classes to around 360 boys each summer. Over 11,000 visitors come to the camp annually for summer camp, day camps, and weekend activities. The camp was built entirely by volunteer labor and continues to operate due to dedicated volunteers like Franklin Brtva, who has volunteered at the camp for 34 years.

1. Camp near Morris draws boys from four states
The Beacon News - Aurora (IL)
August 22, 2002 | Vickie Speek
Children MORRIS --The Rainbow Council Boy Scout
Camp in rural Morris, supporters say, is a hidden treasure
-- a gem valued by at least three generations of parents
and their boys.
The tree-shrouded, 755-acre reservation, built in 1967, contains three lakes and enough
recreational facilities to keep any boy occupied.
It is also a monument to volunteerism and the Scouting tradition.
"Our reservation here is one of the region's hidden treasures," said Sean Denoyer,
camp director and district executive with Rainbow Council.
"It's kind of a hidden gem, a little-known secret of the area."
Denoyer said Boy Scouts from as far south as Peoria and Pontiac, as far north as
Wisconsin, east to Indiana and west to Iowa have stayed at the camp.
A total of about 360 youths attend the four-week-long summer camping season, but day
camp and weekend use by Scouting groups is a large part of what goes on.

2. Last year, the camp accumulated a total of 11,000 visitor days, including summer camp,
day camps and weekend camping throughout the year.
Franklin Brtva, an adult leader from Lockport, first volunteered at the camp 34 years ago
when his two sons were boys.
It was only the second year the camp was open, and Brtva has seen many changes
over the years.
Volunteer labor created all of the facilities at the camp -- the cabins and dining hall, the
swimming and boating docks, the climbing and rappelling tower, even the archery and
rifle ranges.
Brtva's two sons grew up and stopped coming to camp, but he continued, becoming a
camp staff member after he retired a few years ago.
Now Brtva spends his time instructing other people's sons in the joys of Scouting.
Carl Engfer, 18, of Gardner, has been coming to Rainbow Council Camp since he was
11 years old.
He attended three years as a camper and has been a staff member for 5 years.
"I'm working assistant outpost, so I get to do all the fun activities with the kids," he said.
He hopes to be back next year, too.
During the last week in June, the busiest week of the summer season, 120 boys
between the ages of 11 to 16 from 10 different Scout troops from across the state were
camped out.
They normally check into the camp on Sunday afternoons and check out on Saturday
mornings.

3. The Scouts choose the merit badge classes they want to take in advance and are given
their schedules when they arrive at camp.
The nature center is crammed full of aquariums, cages and displays.
"People usually bring things in during the week, and we release them over the
weekend," one leader explained.
"The idea is to have the boys identify them."
On this particular day, the center had a praying mantis, a wolf spider, fossils, plants, fish
and frogs.
The boys had also assisted their leaders in doing a bit of minor surgery -- removing a
fish hook that had become embedded in a turtle's nose.
Wild animals abound on the property, including deer, turkeys, and other species.
"We have a peacock this year, but we don't know where it came from," Brtva said.
"We know we have coyotes because we hear them at night."
Vickie Speek
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