In Minnesota last month, directors of a 50-year-old United Church of Christ camp, Pilgrim Point, voted to close after summer because of declining use and the collapse of financial markets, which slashed its income from endowments. Supporters hope to save the camp through fundraising, but its future is cloudy.

Presbyterians in West Virginia this year formed a nonprofit group to support Bluestone Camp & Retreat, which also was threatened with closure.

The situation is brighter at Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center, located in central Florida, but the camp is facing an operating deficit this year, said director Don Sawyer.

"The economy is affecting everyone," said Sawyer, president of the Southern Baptist Camping Association. "The larger (camps) may have to do some cutbacks and find ways to streamline things, but I don't think they're in danger of closing."

Rebecca Anne Renshaw Brooks, 33, is pulling for the old camp. A resident now of Washington state, she grew up in Alabama and has fond memories of what it meant to her as a youth.

"I was an outcast, a loner in school," she said. "But when you're at camp, it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you look like, or anything else that plagues kids day to day. We all come together as one in that place."