The 4-H’s Camp Virgil Tate near Sissonville is shown in this Oct. 16, 2020 file photo.
Gazette-Mail file photo
The Kanawha County Commission restored funding to Camp Virgil Tate Thursday night with $100,000 for the 2026 fiscal year — $40,000 more than in recent years.
Earlier this year, commissioners pulled the planned $60,000 of funding from the budget after they learned that children in the custody of the Department of Human Services had stayed at the camp without key camp leaders knowing.
Parents, volunteers, employees and campers involved with Camp Virgil Tate, located near Sissonville, told the commissioners how much the camp meant to them. They also asked for increased funding to help with maintenance issues at the camp.
When they pulled the funding, the commissioners said it could return if a “plan of improvement†for the camp’s board, citing previous issues they’ve had with the board.
“The work was done in terms of building a strong relationship between the county commission and the foundation,†Commissioner Natalie Tennant said.
New funding
Thursday afternoon, three days before campers arrived, the commissioners approved the $100,000 in funding.
Oscar Hutchison, treasurer and secretary of the camp's board, said there are nine buildings at Camp Virgil Tate that all need to be repaired. They also have 30 acres of land to maintain.
“[The $100,000] will help allay some of those costs of improvements that we’ve been wanting and needing to make,†he said.
However, Tennant said the board of Camp Virgil Tate still needs to find other ways to make money.
A new memorandum of understanding ensures a shooting range used by the county is on county property and buildings used by the camp are on camp property. This property transfer results in around $40,000 more in insurance costs for Camp Virgil Tate, Tennant said.
The commissioners accepted a $1.2 million grant from the EPA to help with the cleanup and management of contaminated properties across the county.
In 2022, the commission received a $600,000 brownfields grant and completed 49 county-wide projects including hazardous-materials studies at the planned LIFT Center and the old St. Albans Jr. High School, which was then demolished in 2023.
Commissioner Lance Wheeler said the grant allows the county to create reuse plans for hazardous sites that could one day be redeveloped.
Sam Wilkes, an environmental project manager with The Thrasher Group, told the commission the grant can be used to test school buildings that are being closed by Kanawha County Schools so that the buildings can be reused later.
“ This program not only is going to look for those [buildings] that have been sitting for 40 years," Wheeler said "but we're going to be proactive ... in looking at the buildings that are vacant tomorrow and developing a plan now so that generations [after] us don't have to see these buildings ... and say ‘Someone should do something about that.’â€
Other action
At the end of the meeting, a group of Rand residents asked the commissioners for help with their storm drainage systems. The commissioners said they plan to take action at the next meeting.
Also Thursday night, commissioners approved:
$8.6 million for Judicial Annex renovations
$15,000 for the West Virginia Crisis Intervention Team Summit, which trains first responders on how to respond to mental health crises
