"For Fun, For Friends, Forever;" this is the heart of the Onyahsa experience- for the new camper or the veteran. Since its inception well over a century ago, YMCA Camp Onyahsa has been a great place for youth and families. Then as now, it offers security, authenticity, peace, and exciting fun; as necessary today as ever. In a beautiful wooded setting, on the edge of the lake, we don't only enjoy recreation; we aim to "re-create" in the Great Outdoors.

Celebrating its 115th year in 2013, Camp Onyahsa offers an exciting, genuine, and rewarding experience for any camper. Nestled in its own wooded bay on northern Chautauqua Lake, we offer traditional camp sessions, specialty camps, academic programs, teen activities, leadership development programs, extensive waterfront classes, outdoor environmental education, and much more. Each of our weeks has a fun theme as the focus of its activities, and is implemented by caring, committed and competent staff members.

Campers live in rustic single-sex, age-graded cabins or tents under the supervision of carefully selected and trained staff members. The Camp's directors and health staff also reside on site, and provide 24 hour per day supervision, and the Camp has a staff to camper ratio of at least 1:8.

All campers participate together in our special activities, such as campfires, skits, Club Time, theme nights, Olympic games, village nights, and other all-camp programs. Meanwhile, through age-group cabin and tent living with their adult counselors, campers learn as members of small groups to share and live cooperatively. The activities and living areas are staffed with well-qualified and highly committed counselors, who share the goal of making a stay at Onyahsa a truly rewarding experience for all members of the Camp Community.

The Onyahsa mission is to foster the healthy Spiritual, Intellectual, and Physical well-being of Camp Participants from diverse backgrounds within a nurturing outdoor environment, while creating a meaningful sense of Community among them through an active learning experience.

Here we seek to encourage Spiritual growth- through a non-denominational stress on compassion, social justice, human rights, and the strengthening of faith in a loving Creator; Intellectual growth by fostering tolerance, self-awareness, and multi-cultural mutual understanding- the foundations of peace; Physical health, an appreciation for the gift of life and a responsibility to nurture it; and the creation of Community- an authentic experience of belonging created by diverse members who share traditional common values including honesty, caring, respect, and responsibility.

The Onyahsa experience is set in a beautiful, natural outdoor environment, and is fostered by committed, caring and competent staff members and volunteers. Our goal is to provide a genuine, safe, healthy, and happy camp experience for youth and families through life-enriching, "back-to-basics" organized summer and year-round programs.

Join us for this wonderful, exciting, and necessary experience. And whether it's for the first time or the hundredth, Come Home to Camp Onyahsa.