Light Foundation completes Timber Frame Leadership Camp

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GREENVILLE – The Light Foundation completed its sixth annual Timber Frame Leadership Camp, with 19 campers attending the three-day event at Chenoweth Trails on the Foundation’s 500-acre Greenville facility.

“This is three days of spending from eight o’clock in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon working on projects and doing things over and over again,” said Matt Light. “It’s hot and sticky, and we’re picking up big heavy timbers. We’re utilizing a resource that is hundreds of years old but turning it into something that is truly unique, and these kids all have a hand in that. They’re touching history, they’re touching something the pioneers that settled this area of the country a long time ago, so they get so many lessons in such a short period of time, but the best of the best is the sense of accomplishment.”

Timber Frame campers get hands on experience. (Gaylen Blosser photo)

Matt Light, a Greenville graduate, and three-time Super Bowl champion works directly with the campers, along with the camp’s professional timber frame instructors, including Caleb Miller and crew from JCM Timberworks in Killbuck, OH.

The 2024 group completed a project building bleachers for the foundation’s new basketball and pickleball courts, a project no different than building a post-frame structure.

“This isn’t electronics, this isn’t sending an email, and there is no real sense of accomplishment when you’re doing things in the digital realm, but when you actually put hands-on material, and you shape them, you work together, and then you stand them up, and it becomes a structure, and in this case, we’re building bleachers that are 25 foot long beams that will act as our seats,” Light stated. “They used to be the floor joists out of a barn in Englewood, and we now repurpose them into four rows of bleachers for our basketball and pickleball courts.”

Matt Light works on a large barn beam. (Gaylen Blosser photo)

“This is something they can relate to; this is tangible to their realm, and they have a hand in it,” Light added. “We are lucky to do this stuff.”

Light is pleased with the leadership the campers displayed in helping each other and working together to complete this year’s take-home project.

“There is a time in your life when you realize that no matter what you are doing, it’s all about the attitude,” said Light. “It’s whatever you bring to the table. Sports can teach you that you live with the highs and lows. Life can teach you that, being a parent can teach you that, but these kids in this camp, we learn so much from them, and as long as we bring a good attitude, they respond accordingly.”

Light Foundation Timber Frame camper chissels a notch in large beam. (Gaylen Blosser photo)

“We are doing the art of timber framing, but this is a leadership program. When you look around and you watch kids work, they have to work with someone they never worked with before, they have to take instruction from somebody they’ve never met before, they have to be held accountable to make sure their joint fits the right way. These are all qualities that make us better humans, better leaders, and better participants on our teams in school, and that’s what we’re striving for here at the Light Foundation.

“I don’t care if a kid ever becomes a timber framer,” Light continued. “That’s not my goal. My goal is to make someone realize how valuable it is to ask questions, push yourself, get outside your comfort zone, work with other people, and learn from other people, even the people who drive you nuts you have to learn from and we get to see that all take place here at a camp like this. It has been another great one.”

Timber Frame camper puts bleacher pieces together. (Gaylen Blosser photo)

Light took time to thank the sponsors that helped make the Leadership Camp a success.

“We have incredible sponsors, Light noted. “We had a representative from Chervon here. They make Skil/Skilsaw; they make Kobalt, EGO, and FLEX. They give all these kids a 199-dollar set of drivers and drills. Lowes has been a big part of this for a long time, Mitch McCabe, and what Ansonia Lumber does. Guys like Kip Kline have been a legend in this area of timber framing. We have a lot of people that work hard to help us pull this off.”