Built With Heart: A February of Ability Camps
February is a month full of symbols for love. Heart-shaped candy, Valentine’s plans on the calendar and red roses galore. But for Pi Kappa Phi, love looks a lot like taking action: giving time, showing up and choosing service before self. This February, brothers across the country did exactly that through Ability Camps, putting The Ability Experience’s mission into action in practical, hands-on ways.
Ability Camps are weekend service projects hosted by The Ability Experience, where Pi Kappa Phi brothers partner with camps and organizations that serve people with disabilities. Brothers spend the weekend building, repairing, organizing and improving spaces so campers and staff have safer, more accessible and more welcoming environments.
Ability Camps: Florida, Texas, Mississippi
Quest’s Camp Thunderbird: Apopka, Florida
Camp CAMP: Center Point, Texas
Quiet Waters: Canton, Mississippi
February 6-8
More than 100 brothers participated in Ability Camps across Florida (Quest’s Camp Thunderbird), Texas (Camp CAMP) and Mississippi (Quiet Waters), during the weekend of February 6-8.
Across all three locations, brothers took on projects that help partner sites stay safe, functional and accessible, from building fences and installing insulation to landscaping and painting porches. Other improvements were designed with access and inclusion in mind, including constructing an accessible swing, a fishing pier and a concrete seating area that creates a more welcoming space for gathering.
The weekend also included Friendship Visits with campers, a reminder that the best part of these weekends is often the human connection happening alongside the service.
Ability Camp: Texas
Down Home Ranch: Elgin, Texas
February 20-22
Two weeks later, brothers returned to central Texas, this time to Down Home Ranch, with 36 men representing the Beta Iota (Toledo), Beta Omicron (Northwestern State) and Eta Rho (Texas State) Chapters. What made this weekend memorable wasn’t just the work itself, but the way the group handled a major curveball.
The original plan was to construct a new archery range, but a pipe break flooded the project area before the workday began, making it unsafe to proceed. Without skipping a beat, brothers reassessed with camp staff and pivoted, installing more than 100 feet of wheelchair-accessible pathways, creating safer, more reliable access across the grounds for campers and staff with mobility needs.
Because the ranch was also hosting a respite weekend, the service expanded beyond construction. Down Home Ranch describes these weekends as a chance for campers to experience the joy of camp in a supportive setting, to swim, hike, play basketball, try archery and connect with nature while building friendships and memories that last a lifetime. Pi Kappa Phi brothers helped with setup and programming throughout the weekend and ended their Saturday night at a dance party that brought campers, volunteers and staff together, capturing the heart of The Ability Experience: inclusion, joy and community.
Tyler Dupuis, Beta Omicron’s philanthropy chairman, summed up why weekends like this matter not just for camps, but for chapters, too: “What better way could there be to get our chapter involved and invested in philanthropy than having this hands-on experience?”
Another brother put the travel commitment into perspective once the work began: “That long drive to Ability Camp, when you start doing the kind of work we’re doing, it doesn’t feel long at all.”
Ability Camp: Indiana
Camp Riley at Bradford Woods: Martinsville, Indiana
February 27 to March 1
From February 27 to March 1, 35 brothers from the Alpha Nu Chapter at Ohio State University served at Camp Riley at Bradford Woods, focusing on making the camp feel truly usable for everyone.
Brothers split into groups, with some tackling trail maintenance by removing barriers such as downed trees, new growth and rocks to create clearer paths that enable campers to fully participate in outdoor trail programs.
Other groups cleared debris from the camp’s low ropes course and “survival” course, helping ensure those spaces would be ready for campers arriving in just a few weeks. With a small maintenance staff, this kind of work would have otherwise taken multiple weeks, and the weekend made a real difference in preparing the camp for its peak season.
As Christy Harrison, The Ability Experience’s managing director of chapter engagement, shared, “Ability Camps are my favorite program we put on because the impact is permanent. The work outlasts any one weekend, and at several camps you can literally see the fingerprints of generations of Pi Kappa Phi brothers who built, adapted and improved those spaces over time. What I love most is what happens in the downtime. Yes, we build accessible spaces, and that’s incredible, but we also build friendships that feel just as enduring.”
Ability Camp: Ohio
Stepping Stones’ Camp Allyn: Batavia, Ohio
February 27 to March 1
That same weekend, 37 brothers from the Beta Gamma (Louisville), Beta Iota (Toledo) and Eta Upsilon (Miami-Ohio) Chapters served at Stepping Stones’ Camp Allyn, a longtime partner The Ability Experience has been visiting for nearly two decades. For many participating brothers, it was their first Ability Camp, which made it especially meaningful to serve at a place where the work of Pi Kappa Phi volunteers from years past is a clear part of the camp’s history.
As Evan Haughey, Eta Upsilon (Miami-Ohio), philanthropy chairman and camp participant, shared: “It’s special for all of us to come together, serve these camps and help build something bigger and better than any one chapter could on its own.”
Brothers tackled the weekend by breaking up the task list into manageable parts, working in groups made up of brothers from each chapter and taking ownership of projects designed to make the space more inviting and usable. They built garden frames and extra-wide benches to better accommodate clients and focused on mulching and cleaning up property lines and fence areas to help keep the camp clean, welcoming and ready for the many visitors who use the grounds. The work created more places for clients to sit, gather and enjoy the camp environment.
Ability Camp: Alabama
Camp ASCCA: Jackson’s Gap, Alabama
February 28 to March 1
From February 28 to March 1, 18 undergraduate brothers from the Alpha Iota Chapter at Auburn University headed to Camp ASCCA in Alabama.
One major project was installing new decking boards on the wheelchair ramp and front deck of Davis Lodge, a centrally located cabin serving both children and adults with disabilities year-round. Brothers also worked in the waterslide program area, replacing decking boards and demolishing old sections in one of the most visible areas on the water.
Across the rest of the camp, brothers took on a wide range of projects supporting both functionality and long-term upkeep, from constructing raised garden beds to completing a clean, buff and seal process on the gym floor. They also raked and distributed pine straw to help prevent erosion, strategically placed rocks and large boulders near the pool areas and trimmed low-hanging branches to support safer movement across the grounds.
Alex Dumais, Gamma Phi (South Alabama), served as the facilitator for this Ability Camp, a sort of homecoming as a former Camp ASCCA staff member.
This year also marks Camp ASCCA’s 50th anniversary, for much of which Pi Kappa Phi and The Ability Experience have been a partner. As Camp ASCCA shared on its website, Pi Kappa Phi and The Ability Experience first visited the camp in the early 1990s and have returned nearly every year since, completing projects that have become part of the camp’s everyday experience. Camp Director Matt Rickman, an alumnus initiate of the Iota (Georgia Tech) Chapter, summed up the impact plainly: “I can stand at the center of Camp ASCCA and point in any direction, and chances are something was built by Pi Kappa Phi members.”
That kind of legacy is exactly what The Ability Experience is about, not just finishing projects, but building and maintaining the spaces that support people with disabilities year after year. This work doesn’t disappear when the weekend ends; it becomes part of a camper’s experience, the ramps, decks, paths and program spaces that make it possible to participate fully and belong completely.
Across every weekend and site, the projects differed, but the purpose stayed the same. Brothers made the journey, worked hard and strengthened partner camps in ways that will endure. That’s what service before self looks like in practice: action and follow-through.
