Campers gather outside SFAC’s Odess Theater in 2016. Almost half of the camp’s $2.5 million operating budget goes toward maintaining the campus’s 20 buildings. “We had to have a 100-year plan,” says board president Sam Skaggs. (SFAC photo)

Sitka Fine Arts Camp board president Sam Skaggs and camp director Roger Schmidt discuss the recent gift of the Skaggs Foundation of $1 million to establish an endowment for the camp. The gift will terminate the Skaggs Foundation, which was originally created in the 1960’s by Sam’s grandparents to build a rural hospital in Missouri.