FAYETTEVILLE -- The century-old Mount Sequoyah Retreat and Conference Center overlooking the city's heart is no longer a part of the United Methodist Church, which brings a loss of money but could also spark community and summer programs, its leaders said Friday.
The church's South Central Jurisdiction, which includes Arkansas and seven other states, voted last week to transfer the center's ownership to a nonprofit organization called Mount Sequoyah Center, according to a news release Friday. The people staffing and running the center are all the same, but the Methodist Church no longer will be involved with its operations, said Rev. Jess Schload, Mount Sequoyah's CEO.
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To learn more about Mount Sequoyah Retreat and Conference Center, its offerings and its programs, go to mountsequoyah.org.
"We're still going to be, in many ways, the same we've always been," he said, adding the change should calm recent rumors about the center's possible sale or closing. "If anything, we're more alive than we've ever been."
The 32-acre site on a forested hillside just east of downtown hosts church and nonprofit groups, weddings and visitors and includes cottages, a pool and courts for tennis and basketball. The chatter of kids at the Kanakuk KampOut Day Camp spilled out from a cafeteria around midday Friday, and pop music sounded from another corner of the center.
Abra Gump, whose 5-year-old daughter, Abbott, won a white-ribbon leadership award at the weeklong camp, said it was the first time she'd been to Mount Sequoyah.
"It's really neat, and it's been a really great experience for her," Gump said of the place, adding she'd "absolutely" be interested in other events there. "It's just a nice place."
More camps for tennis, technology and art are coming up in the next week or so, according to the center's website, and Schload said senior programs and overnight camps are getting rolling. He hopes the center can now provide even more programs such as those camps, possibly by expanding outside of its Methodist image.
"I think so many people looked at us for years as, 'This place is for United Methodists,' and that's never really been true," he said, adding while the organization remains a Christian one, all comers are welcome.
"We like to say we help people meet their mission," Schload went on. "It (the ownership change) really opens doors with us to seek partnerships with other church groups, with other nonprofits, to offer education programming and other programming."
The center's board will meet during the next month to put together a clear mission for the center that will guide those new projects, Schload said.
Built in 1922, the center soon became a "node" for training events and retreats for Methodists from New Mexico to Missouri, said David Severe, director of the South Central Jurisdiction. He first visited as a junior in high school in 1951 and kept coming through most of his adult life, he said.
But those events have become less and less common, with many states bringing training conferences to their homes instead of traveling to Arkansas and taking other measures to save money, Severe said. The spinoff is part of that push.
"I know the reasons, and the reasons make sense to me," Severe said, but still, "I have some sadness about it."
The jurisdiction's bishops for several years have discussed spinning off the center, which Severe said was the only one of its kind in the jurisdiction. The change means the center is losing a yearly payment from the jurisdiction; Severe pegged it at $165,000, but Schload said it was around $135,000.
Either way, the drop is almost one-tenth of of the center's budget of around $1.7 million, Schload said. He said he and the staff would keep a close eye on expenses in the next few years, and he hopes make up the gap with the new programs that could be coming. The center is also fundraising for the last $50,000 of a $300,000 one-to-one matching grant from the United Methodist Foundation of Arkansas.
"We certainly believe we can work around it," Schload said.
Schload, who recently joined Mount Sequoyah after running another Methodist center in Florida, has some experience with this kind of transition, he said. He oversaw a similar separation of the Geneva Point Center in New Hampshire 30 years ago.
After settling on its new mission, the center is still going strong, he said. Its website shows several sports and family camps this month, for example.
Severe said Mount Sequoyah has become a valuable and valued piece of Fayetteville over the past several decades, with its cottages full on football weekends. It will still do the same great things for the area, he said.
"And even more, perhaps," Severe said.
NW News on 07/23/2016