In 1960, Youth Development International, Jim Vaus’ ministry to kids in Spanish Harlem, was looking for a property to set up a camp. Ninety miles outside New York City, it found a heavily-wooded, 400-acre tract with a 50-acre man-made lake near Glen Spey, New York. With the support of George Champion, Chairman of the Board of Chase Manhattan Bank, they bought the property.  Lake Champion had its first campers in 1961.

Youth Development International sold the camp to Teen Challenge, another NYC ministry, in 1972. Teen Challenge used the camp for ministry, especially for those suffering from drug-related problems, but by the early 1980's they were only using a small part of the camp. Teen Challenge put the camp up for sale in 1985.

Young Life purchased the camp in March of 1986, and on June 21st, 150 campers and their leaders began using all the original facilities. Since that time, fundraising has enabled significant improvements and expansion at Lake Champion, including four new dormitories, a gymnasium, a club room, a swimming pool, recreational activity additions, and upgrades to assigned staff housing, the dining hall, office, and infirmary. With the completion of four dorms, today Lake Champion can accommodate more than 400 campers and 100 support staff, and is completing the development plan to bring all areas of camp up to Young Life standards of excellence.

Each summer Lake Champion has over 5,000 guests visit the camp.  The summer schedule is typically comprised of ten weeks of high school outreach and two weeks of junior high school outreach.  Leadership, family, and adult camps fill out the summer.   Two of the high school outreach weeks are specifically targeted for urban kids.  Lake Champion also serves nearly 14,000 school-year guests primarily for weekend camps.  The schedule includes camps on almost every weekend from Labor Day to Memorial Day with weeklong camps in May.  Use of the camp for short, mid-week retreats and training sessions is on the rise as over half of the school season weeks have some kind of group function occurring.  Young Life groups makeup about half of the school year attendance, with church and other Christian ministries accounting for the remaining visitors.

Young Life believes that camp should be an experience that will take young people out of their daily environment into a new environment free from distractions, expectations, and stress.  Risk and adventure distinctive to the location stretch teenagers to take on challenges they'd never try otherwise.  Lake Champion’s activities are designed to challenge young people to step beyond their comfort zone, to learn to trust and succeed.

- High and Low-Element Ropes Courses
- Climbing Wall
- Pamper Pole
- Wake Boarding and Tubing
- Mountainboarding
- Mountain Bikes
- Double Zip Lines
- Blob
- Swimming Pool & Jacuzzi
- Gymnasium (basketball, volleyball…)
- Canoes, Kayaks, and Paddleboats
- Game Room, Snack Bar, Store
- 50-acre Lake
- Two Frisbee Golf Courses

In the summer of 2000, Lake Champion achieved its designed capacity of 384 campers/leaders; however, several significant pieces of the master plan’s infrastructure remain to be built. The most critical needs are expansion of our dining room/kitchen capacity, additional recreation center space, a larger snack bar, an expanded camp store, and more living space for our Assignment Team families. For future years, there is also provision to expand the capacity of the camp to 470 campers and leaders. In January 2004, Young Life began a $3,000,000 fund raising campaign for construction of a new kitchen/dining room and conversion of the existing dining room/kitchen into a new recreation center, snack bar and camp store. Expansion of the camp’s Assignment Team housing will begin once the dining hall/recreation center construction is completed.