Nestled in the foothills with a view of Old Rag, Susan Hoffman and Mike Biniek have been hosting a summer camp at their Belle Meade Farm for 30 years and show no signs of slowing down.
The camp, which has several two-week sessions each summer, sees dozens of kids as young as four who come to fish, swim, and take weekly field trips to hiking trails around the county. “My other counselors started as campers, so we grow our counselors, which is really pretty special,” Hoffman said.
Hoffman and Biniek bought the property in 1993 after seeing a “For Sale” sign while driving through the county. Hoffman said, “The universe brought us here,” and they’ve only expanded their operations since, opening a Montessori school 14 years after they started the camp.
While the camp does not have a single mantra, Hoffman said they encourage the kids to be “responsible and independent” while also enjoying what their Sperryville property has to offer. She said many children have enrolled in school at the Belle Meade Montessori School after participating in the day camp.
Hoffman has been overseeing summer camps since she was a teenager growing up in Oklahoma City. As a former Washington, D.C. public school teacher, Hoffman said teaching children has always been a calling.
“The idea is, ‘say yes,’” Hoffman said. “… I don’t want to hear ‘no’ or ‘don’t.’ If they’re doing something you rather they didn’t do, suggest what you rather they do.”
Some students are transported to the camp by school bus, which is also used to take kids to hiking trails. “For many years, I was one of the van drivers,” Biniek said. “And then when we got the bus, it got a little bit more complicated because that was a [commercial vehicle].”
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Susan Hoffman (pictured) and Mike Biniek began hosting and leading a day camp on their Belle Meade property 30 years ago. Hoffman, a former public school teacher, said teaching kids has always been a calling.
Biniek said they typically spend a day at Old Rag Mountain, but with the new ticketing system, they have not been able to access the trails with all of the campers. “They don’t make it easy to have 30 kids come up on the mountain,” Biniek said.
So, they spend time at the water hole and hike the trails at Mary’s Rock and White Oak Canyon, among others.
Mike Dunnigan has been assisting the camp on and off for 20 years, he said, after enrolling his daughter when she was five years old. Now, Dunnigan commutes more than an hour to the camp with his young son, where he helps the kids get their gear set up to fish in the pond on the property.
Dunnigan and the other counselors say it’s the kids that keep them coming back every year. Veteran-counselor Olivia Sisk has been attending the camp for 14 years and said, “It’s really rewarding,” to work with the kids and be outside all day. Another counselor, Webb Furbish, said it’s helped him to stay in shape.
All of the camp sessions for this season are booked. Interested families can enroll when applications open in the winter, Hoffman said, which will be posted on their website. A two-week session is $450, and Hoffman said there is financial support available.
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