Delaware Fellowship for Christian Athletes holds power camp program at Woodbridge High School

The Delaware branch of the Fellowship for Christian Athletes held one of their power camp programs at Woodbridge High School during the last week of July. Serving as both sports activity and youth ministry, volunteers served as leaders for devotional huddles and coaches for various sports. Trevor Daisey, the area director of the Delaware branch, provided some insight into FCA activities both locally and abroad, the Woodbridge power camp, and spoke on the organization’s mission and challenges.

Daisey is a Delaware local, having grown up in Sussex County and went to school at Sussex Tech. Daisey worked in construction for a few years, having studied carpentry, before he felt called to the FCA.

“We’re basically a sports ministry, we have a couple different aspects to it,” Daisey explained about the structure of FCA. “One is during the school year we’ll have what we call huddles which are essentially bible studies. We’ll have them for sports teams and during school days at a school. We ask permission, and we work like any other club that meets during the day.”

FCA Delaware Co-Area Director Trevor Daisey and Woodbridge FCA Camp Director Evolyn Anthony worked hand in hand to bring the FCA power camp to Woodbridge High School.

Daisey continued by saying that these huddles are often student led, and that higher grade-level students will often act as huddle leaders for lower grade-level students. Daisey also said that for the sports teams, they’ll feed the players and then have a bible study afterwards.

“During the summer time, we do camps, all the way from seven year-olds to college-aged athletes,” Daisey said, “We have four local power camps, this is one of them at Woodbridge. We have one at Lake Forest, at Georgetown, and another one at Smyrna. This is the smallest one, it’s got 60 (students), brand new, first year we’ve done it.”

Daisey continued by mentioning that Lake Forest served as their highest attended power camp with 240 students alone. “This past year, we (gave) scholarships to 40 Delaware athletes to go up to Liberty University where the high-school kids are the campers and the huddle leaders and volunteers are college athletes,” Daisey said. “And they’re coached by division one coaches, and it was actually the biggest FCA camp in the world; we had 2,500 people on campus for an overnight camp. They stay for the week then we bus them home… it’s a lot, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

In addition to having programs in every state in the country, the FCA is also in around 96 different countries. “Each state is partnered up with a particular region and country that we help support,” Daisey said. “So actually here we’re raising funds to go to a team in the country of Laos, which is a communist country. It’s legal to be a Christian but you can’t share your Christianity, so we help support them with money and (that team) is able to do their ministry.”

Delaware is part of the mid-Atlantic region of the FCA along with Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. The states in this region oversee Southeast Asia, and each state has a corresponding country. “I just hosted at my house a couple staff from Malaysia,” Daisey continued. “They come over here and visit us and our goal is to visit them as much as we can. It’s a nice partnership, and it’s very much a unique experience to talk to them and see how different other countries are and stuff that we take for granted here in America.”

Evolyn Anthony served as the Woodbridge FCA Camp Director and provided some history on Woodbridge’s involvement with the FCA organization through the years. Woodbridge first got involved with the FCA in 2012, when George and Amanda Roth held weekly huddles after football practice, providing a meal and helping participants deepen their relationship with Jesus through Bible study, discussion and prayer. In addition to the football team, the basketball, baseball, and field hockey teams also held their own huddles after practice.

“During COVID, everything stopped,” Anthony explained. “It wasn’t until the spring of 2024 that Jonah and Beth Lathbury started a baseball huddle with Woodbridge Middle School, and there was an overwhelmingly positive response on social media about FCA starting back up.”

In 2024, various community members, churches, and Woodbridge staff met with Seth Daisey, Trevor’s brother and the area director of Lower Delaware, and planned a one-day minicamp. This minicamp saw great success, with 50 campers attending, and opened the door to holding the three-day power camp this year. Anthony also shared that during the 2024-2025 school year, every sports team held weekly huddles through every season at Woodbridge Middle and High School, and Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center held FCA club meetings several times throughout the year. The power camp this year saw 61 campers, 20 huddle leaders, and 20 volunteers, along with several community members that provided donations in the form of food, drinks, and other resources. Sports that were offered during the camp included baseball, co-ed basketball, field hockey and co-ed soccer.

If you’re interested in FCA activities or want to get involved with the Delaware branch of the FCA, check out their website at www.delawarefca.org, where you can find schedules, events, contact information, and more. And if you are interested in getting involved with the Woodbridge FCA, reach out to Evolyn Anthony at ev******@***il.com.