Camp Big Fish, celebrating 10 years, coming to CAK
Camp Big Fish is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the addition of a new summer camp location at Christian Academy of Knoxville.
Jeremy and Molly Deitch, senior directors and owners, founded the program in Chattanooga.
“This is a big year for Jeremy and his wife Molly,” said Valery Howard, director for the Knoxville Christian School location who also helps lead the other Knoxville directors.
“It started out really small — with 40 kids — and since then, they have just added on locations and expanded out to Knoxville from Chattanooga,” she added. “The more kids they got, they were able to add on more employees and they just kept growing from there.”
Besides their Chattanooga locations and KCS, along Snyder Road in Farragut, the summer camps are held at Middlebrook Pike United Methodist Church and now at CAK, 529 Academy Way, off Dutchtown Road.
Camp Big Fish is a summer camp program that provides a safe place for youngsters to have a fun camp experience while serving God, she said.
“Big Fish stands for ‘Believers In God, Faithful In Serving Him,” Howard said. “So, we incorporate Christian beliefs into our program.
“We say we are interdenominational,” she added. “We have all walks of life to come together to serve God.
“We do an awakening (church service) in the morning, when we gather all the kids and we worship God. Then throughout the day, we do a lot of fun, summer camp activities, whether it’s a water day or a theme day.”
As for other activities, “We do go to a pool once a week,” she said. “We go on field trips, so some of our big trips this year (will be) Jump Jam. We’re going to the zoo and Main Event. We also go to Gym Tech, and we go skating.”
She said the CAK location provides access to its large playground and gymnasium, two large fields, multiple classrooms and its cafeteria.
The camp serves rising kindergartners to rising sixth-graders from 7:15 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“We have around 125 to 150 kids (who attend),” Howard said. “We expect to be filling up by the beginning of May. “We start (the camp) on May 28, and we go all the way until Aug. 2,” she added, noting the program runs about 10 weeks.”
Camp Big Fish offers two options: seven- to 10-week program is $145 a week with everything included.
A four-week program is $200 a week, but offers a little more summer scheduling flexibility, Howard said.
“So, if (families) like to travel quite a bit in the summer, or they want their child to go somewhere else for a week, they can still do Big Fish,” she added.
For more information about Camp Big Fish, Big Fish After-school programs or Big Fish Sports, call 423-504-1622 or visit www.campbigfish.org.
