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A Home Run for the Funnest Fun – Wiffle Ball 5K Exceeds Goal!

A team of "wiffle ball sluggers" hit 5,000 homers and helped raise $35,000 for Camp Lebanon's ministry! Praise God!

They did it! Just before 10:00pm on Saturday, June 11th, fourteen hours and fifty-two minutes after the first swing, Monte Abeler hit home run #5000. What an amazing moment! The team of “wiffle ball sluggers” hugged and cheered, partying like they just won the World Series! (see video below) And rightly so, hitting 5000 homers is quite the accomplishment and a huge commitment. But the biggest reason for the celebration was the fact that $35,901 was raised for Camp Lebanon’s ministry! 120% of the goal! Praise God!

Impact On Camp Lebanon
$35,000 goes a long way in elevating the impact of Camp’s ministry! Look at what will happen now as a result of the incredible financial and prayer support of so many friends!
 
1) The Snow Tubing Hill Upgrades are FULLY FUNDED! Now Camp’s facilities team can get to work on upgrading Hazzard Hill. At minimum, this will be a huge hit with Camp’s overnight winter guests. But there is real potential for this to reach thousands of people who wouldn’t have otherwise stepped foot on Camp’s site!
2) The Beaver Point Boardwalk Expansion is FULLY FUNDED! The expansion project is already underway, check out the video showing the progress. This boardwalk will help kids experience God in His Creation up close and personal. That they may know Him as their personal Savior!
3) Half of the cost of Camp’s two new docks is covered. Exceeding the goal allowed for the event to cover even more of this cost than anticipated.
 
WOW. WOW. WOW!  Over the past three years, this annual wiffle ball home run marathon has raised a total of $79,417.50!  PRAISE GOD!!
BY THE NUMBERS:
For all of you stats lovers out there, you’ll enjoy these! In total, 5000 home runs were hit in 14 hours and 52 minutes, which results in an average of 336 homers/hour and 5.6 homers/minute. If each home run traveled an average of 115 feet it would have covered a distance of 575,000 feet (108.90 miles!). That doesn’t even count all of the swings that didn’t result in a home run. The total number of swings wasn’t tracked, but based on 20 swings/minute (1 every 3 seconds), a total of 17,840 swings were taken. That works out to 1 home run per 3.57 swings. Hour #6 was the best hour (443 homers hit, 7.38/minute). The first hour ended up being the worst hour for the 10 marathon guys (266 homers hit, 4.33/minute). NOTE: Hour #12 was a special hour where a bunch of kids were able to join in the fun and help hit some homers! More on that later.

On an individual basis, Andy Peterson led all hitters by hitting 776 home runs! That is more than Barry Bonds’ MLB career record of 762 lifetime home runs. Another fun fact is the top 4 individual home run hitters were the 4 guys who had previously done this wiffle ball marathon before in prior years. Wisdom must come from experience!

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY:

The day was filled with fun moments, but the highlight had to be in hour #12 when a bunch of kids & adults from Pequot Lakes Baptist Church each had the chance to take a round of swings and help chip away at the 5,000 home runs. These kids & adults have been a huge help with shagging balls and encouraging the guys at every one of these wiffle ball marathons. They’ve been a part of this thing from the beginning, so to see them hit 36 of the home runs was truly touching and amazing!

NEXT YEAR?

Will the Wiffle Ball 5K be back again in 2023? If the Lord wills, yes!! The guys are working on some new ideas and twists that will allow more people to be involved in what has become an annual tradition and blessing to Camp. Stay tuned!

THANK YOU!

Thank you again for supporting the cause! Follow Camp Lebanon on Instagram and/or Facebook to see progress reports on the now-fully-funded projects. May the Lord bless you just as you have blessed us!

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