Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep.#80: Marannook Camp That Changes College Students And Kids
We trace Marannook’s journey from a family’s dream to a thriving, Scripture-driven camp that disciples college students and welcomes 1,408 campers. Taylor Teel shares growth milestones, staff formation, year-round work, and a vision anchored in work and rest.
• founding story rooted in Bible training for college students
• summer structure, age groups, and leader training
• Taylor’s calling and transition into leadership
• what happens during the off-season and why it matters
• recruiting 40 college students and volunteer needs
• fundraising, renovations, and new junior high camp
• staff formation through work and real rest
• Greece study trips and impact on faith and leadership
• three million dollar capital campaign and future plans
• how to register, serve, or give
• 50th anniversary celebration details
“On November 8th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., we have our 50th anniversary celebration at camp. All activities open, comedy show, manna celebration, and free food for everyone. Address: 10425 Veterans Memorial Parkway, LaFayette, Alabama. Visit marannook.org or email info@marannook.org.”
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome. My guest today is Taylor Teal. Taylor is with a camp in La Fette, Alabama, Marinook. Welcome, Taylor.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Susanna, and thank you for having me today.
SPEAKER_02:So tell us a little bit about Marinook.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, ma'am. So Marinook started in 1975 by Charles and Barbara Kendrick Holmes. They're originally from LaGrange and they moved to La Fette, Alabama, when they were given some land. And they were both in separate areas of the country when they were listening to different people and talking to different folks. And both of them had the idea of what if we did a camp on our land? And that's how it started. And when they came back together that weekend, they said, I have something to tell you. And they looked at each other and said, I have something to tell you. And uh and that's how it all began. And it really began with a desire to teach college students God's word. That was really the main primary component of why they wanted to do camp. And so many college students, and this is not new, uh, this is just just from from as long as college students have been around, um, they're in a very formative time in their life. That's right, yeah. And if they uh know Christ, um, hopefully they do. And even if it's even if they don't, and this is an opportunity for them to open up the word of God and to be able to know where do I start? When I put my finger down in scripture, how do I know where to start? Uh or do I have to listen to somebody tell me where to start? And so this really teaches them how to read, how to study, how to hear, uh, how to pray, how to meditate on the word of God. And uh we disciple them in a college uh you know, friendly environment on 177 acres, and they spend time together in gospel community, which is something that college students long for. And uh and then we bring in kids and we teach the kids the gospel uh based on what they have learned during their time there.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent. So is this primarily in the summer or is it all year? How often are you having camp?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, great question. Uh, it is primarily in the summer. Uh, and so we bring the uh counselors in uh at the beginning of May and we do some some pretty heavy training. We teach them hermeneutics and we even do some word studies, and then we start bringing in the campers about May 28th, and we have campers for the entire month of June and the entire month of July, and we serve second through ninth graders, and then we also have uh 10th, 11th, and 12th graders who come and they serve as our kitschies and they serve as our maintenance man. And so they they also participate in the programming of what we do. Uh, we do Bible studies with them while they're there, they stay in two-week increments, but um it's a really good opportunity for really anybody from this second grade all the way through senior year of college uh to be a part of camp in the summertime.
SPEAKER_02:Well, tell me a little bit about you, Taylor. How did you get involved with Marinook? What's your role there? How did you get to be a part of this uh camp experience?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's a real God story, um, as it should be. Uh what happened was when I can't when I came out of college, uh, we had a desire. My wife and I loved camp. We had a desire to start a camp, starting a camp at 23, uh, having insurance say yes to that, uh, having people that say yes to that. Uh a little more challenging. So gotta shut the door on that. Uh I worked in sales for seven years. Uh, sold the headsets that you see in college football uh with a local company called CoachCom. Uh, I don't know if you're familiar with them, but we uh sold uh headsets to all the college, uh all the college programs around the country. And as I was doing that, I was volunteering in the local church, and um it just became clear to me that the path that the Lord had for me was different. And so I submitted to the call of full-time ministry, which was very daunting. It was very unexpected. Uh we were uh I was 28, my wife was 28, we had two kids, we had our third on the way, and uh we said yes to it, and so I became a children's pastor and we went to Alpharetta, Georgia, and uh served as a children's pastor in Alfredo, Georgia for just under six years, and then I came back to the Oklaika area, and then when I came back to the Oak Lica area in 2016, one of the things we were looking for was a camp to take our people to, and so I connected with Marinook and I said, Hey, when you guys aren't having camp, can we bring some campers? And they agreed to it, and so we went, and this was 2017, 2018, 2019. We had no idea what was coming in 2020, right? And so, you know, we were just being faithful, we were just being obedient to what the Lord was putting in front of us. Went to went to Marinook, formed a really good relationship with them. It was really sweet uh to be able to experience uh camp. We did camp a different way a little bit than they were doing camp at that time, but we were doing it on Merinook property, and I was getting to know the Marinook staff. And so when 2020 had camp closed down, and many of the staff uh left camp and and needed to leave camp, and Marinook was really going through a transition at that time. The founder, Charles and Barbara, um, they were they were getting to a point where they needed to move off the property. Um they were aging, and you know, camp was always always is part of their heart, um, but their their ability to be involved in the day-to-day was looking like it was more in their past.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So they were going through that transition 2020 hit, um, and that opened a door for them to say, hey, is there is there an opportunity in 2021 for new leadership here? And so they called me and they asked if I'd be interested. And uh we prayed about it and we said yes.
SPEAKER_02:And that's a great story, yeah. And now you're there, awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Now we're there.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's really a good story. So you've been you've been at Marinook here for several years. Uh you've been in the youth ministry for a long time. What are some of the misconceptions that people have um about what you do that you've run across? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think one of the biggest, uh, that's a great question. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions is what do you do the rest of the year?
SPEAKER_02:Um Yeah, that's a good question. What do you do the rest of the year? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and you know, I don't know if it's just from experience or or what for my for my life, I I look at it and I go, okay, what do football coaches do the rest of the year? Right. They only coach 12 games. What do they do the rest of the time? And um, there's a great deal of programming that goes into a summer to make it run fluently because you really don't get a break. We go about 74 days in a row. Um, and so while we do have pause moments where uh things are actively happening, we always have somebody about to come or about to go. And so we really have to prepare those nine months from a programming standpoint to make sure that there's uh no hiccups that we have thought through everything, that we have planned from a human resources standpoint for everything, financially for everything, um, that we have planned food. I mean, food is a big piece of it. You have to feed uh people, yeah. Yeah, you're making you're making almost 800 meals a day. Um, and we do that with um with one adult, a couple of college students, and um and several high school students. And so high school students are learning to cook, high school men boys are learning to clean. Um, we have um we have you know the campers out there, we have the college students out there, we have 80 staff to feed, we have 80 staff to recruit um in the offseason, and then you have 177 acres that just need to be maintained. You have capital projects that need to be built in between the summers. Uh, you have fundraising that has to happen. Um, you have uh uh just a number of things that you have to look at on an everyday basis, excuse me, on an everyday basis to be able to accomplish what happens in those 72 days.
SPEAKER_02:Right. That yeah, that's a lot happening in a short amount of time there, really. So tell me a little bit what's on your mind now as far as um, you know, you have all the guests, the logistics of this. What are some of the things that you need uh to, you know, is maybe in terms of recruiting or volunteers, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yes, ma'am. So great question. We have a um we really have a need in the off season. Uh if there's ever volunteers that want to bring groups out to help with projects or anything like that, there's always there's always things to be done. Um, and these are very beneficial, not just for us, but for the people that are participating in uh in the project. I mean, just serving, right? Right. But we recruit 40 college students uh every year. And so really this year is our first year recruiting 40. In the past, we've done anywhere from 20 to 30. And those 40 college students are making a commitment for the entire summer, but really what they're making a commitment to is a commitment to being discipled uh and a commitment to sharing the gospel. That's really what they're committing to. And so we are looking for college students 18 to 22. They don't have to be in college as long as they have completed uh high school and they are of the age that are freshmen uh after freshman year, you know, having completed freshman year, if they are that age, they can apply to be part of our program. We call them our T staff. And that is a uh that is a big, big component of who we are and what we do. Uh the other side of that is um donors. Uh we have uh if you're you know, there are people that are passionate about discipleship, if they're passionate about seeing kids come to know Christ, if they're passionate about kids getting away from their phones and being in the outdoor environment and making friends uh while they're sitting by the lake or playing on the lakeside. Um, those are things that we need on a on a regular basis. We need donors on a regular basis to be giving. And really we need monthly donors as part of our 50th anniversary. We're really making an appeal uh for people to see what God is doing. And and just to capitalize on that, when I came in in 2021, we had 603 campers that year. And uh it was a lot of campers. Uh, it was more than we expected. We we were thinking probably 400 or 500. We had 603, and we have grown every year. And this year uh we'll have 1,408 campers. So we'll have 1,408 campers coming this year.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And we have built uh we have built a junior high camp in addition to our elementary camp. Uh we have uh done tons of renovations across the property and added activities uh to be able to accommodate this, but we've also boosted our staff. Uh and one of the interesting things about what we did with our staff is um a couple years ago, we took the last two years of staff uh to Greece to walk in the footsteps of Paul.
SPEAKER_02:No, what a great experience.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was one, it was wonderful. And and we went, we went, we left in December right after Christmas, and we spent the new years in Athens, Greece. Uh, we went to Thessalonica and to Berea. Uh we went to Corinth, we went to the Matorah Heights. Uh, but this was a you know once-in-a-lifetime experience for college students to build on what they had learned from scripture. And so, really, you know, yes, we operate in the summer, but the we see these things carry on. We see God do immeasurably more. And God has just done so much work in bringing, I mean, he has done all the work in bringing the students here and bringing the campers here. And what really gets me just excited is okay, what's he gonna do next? And so we've been putting together plans for a pavilion for some basketball and for some pickleball and for a dining facility and a worship facility for our junior high. So we have a three million dollar camp capital campaign going on right now uh for those things to happen in order for Marinook to really to reach capacity uh and to and to do all the things that God has put before us. One of the verses that we often uh recite and go back to is in Psalm 90, and it says, Show your work to your servants and your glorious ways to your children, uh, and let your favor be upon us and bless the work of our hands. Yes, Lord, bless the work of our hands. And so we know there's a lot of work to do, um, but like Psalm 127 does, we don't work in vain. Uh we do the work he's put before us, and we just leave everything else up to him. Well, like we leave it all up to him. It's just here you go, Lord.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. That is a great way to do things for sure. So let's shift a little bit here. Let's talk about you and your family here. What do you guys do for fun when you're not planning or orchestrating or in the midst of doing camps in the summer?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's um, it's very important to keep that balance. Um, when I when I tell people that we run a camp, they have my, they're like, what a dream for your family. And it really is. It's a blessing and a dream because our kids come up and they spend the whole summer at camp. And what what better place for a kid to be, you know, basically running wild in a safe environment where they're constantly surrounded by Jesus-loving people. But um, we're actually packing today uh to go to visit a family in Mississippi, and they came as a camp family uh this past summer. Uh, they're a family that helped us for an entire week at camp. And we're going to visit them and spend the weekend with them for fall break. Uh, we're gonna do some redfish fishing, we're gonna do some trout fishing. We love fishing. Uh, we live on a six and a half acre pond here in Auburn.
SPEAKER_02:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:Uh we love hiking. Uh, we love going to the AT, we love campouts. Uh, we really love road trips. We've made a road trip to the Grand Canyon in the last year and a half as a family. And um, and you know, we went to Zion and Grand Canyon, and uh we hiked up and down in the Grand Canyon. It was unbelievable. But our family is very adventurous. They're, I would call them very athletic. We go to Auburn games where you know, we have kids that play tennis, we have kids in Show Choir, we have kids that play soccer. Uh, we our oldest is in college. Uh, and so we have 19, 17, 15, and 12, and they're Tristan, Tucker, Tanner, and Tatum. My wife is Tamra, I'm Taylor, and our last name is Teal. So a lot of T's. Yeah. And uh, but you know, uh, I would I would say this about our family, and I'm so I'm so proud of them in so many ways. But they are resilient. When we moved to Auburn, we had an opportunity to get some family land here. Uh, my my grandfather and grandmother moved here in 1957. And uh, and so we had an opportunity to build a house, and uh, and so the question was, where do we live while we do this? And my wife said, What if we bought an RV and parked it underneath the barn and lived in the RV while we built the house? And I looked at her and I said, You're this is this is your idea. Yeah, and she said, Are you sure? Yeah, I said, Are are you in? And she said, She said, We can do this. And I said, Okay, if it okay, this is your idea, you're in, uh, I'm in. Uh, so we looked at the kids, and the kids, of course, much smaller at the time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was an adventure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, adventure, and so we did that, and for 18 months. I mean, my wife cooked bacon and muffins and eggs on a small stovetop. But I look at that and I say, you know, our family has we walk through something like that, uh, and we look at it and we say, hey, this is just nothing but air and opportunity for us to get closer as a family. And so we've continued a lot of those spontaneous traditions of going out and having fun and going on road trips and things like that.
SPEAKER_02:Well, let's turn back to Marinook here. What is one thing you wish people knew about Marinook that they may not uh realize?
SPEAKER_00:Um, oh, that's a really good question. Um, you know, I hit on it earlier, but um, when parents send their kids there, the kids uh have a great experience. We focus on a lot of different values um at Marinook, and and one of those values is being very personable. Um, you know, we the one of the acronyms we use is CAMP. So we create safe environments, we're always authentic, we make memories and we're personable people. And so the hospitality side of Marinook uh is is very high. Uh, we want to give every kid an opportunity to hear the gospel clearly, to eat really good food, to make really good friends, uh, to be taken care of for a week while they're away from their family. Uh that news gets out. Hey, my kids had a great time. Uh Marinook is awesome, and we're so grateful for that. But the core of it is um I really wish, and I don't even know how to do this rightly, I really wish everybody could see the impact and the value that is brought to those college students because we we really do focus on hard work and rest. And so we hire more college students than we need because we want to invest in them, but we also want to give them an opportunity to rest because camp is hard. And so some of them will do one week or two weeks in a row, but then we give them a week off where they're a lifeguard, they're working ropes, they're just not directly in charge of kids. And we want them to see from a life standpoint that all of life is not all of work, but it's also not all of rest. Yeah, you've got to have both, and you've got to know how to do both because when you're a college student, you constantly are going and you're constantly doing. And rest is not on your phone. Rest is not scrolling on your phone, rest is not staring at the TV, rest is going for a walk, being in the Word, having a conversation with a friend, um, spending time with the Lord. That's true rest. And so, what we are trying to teach them is really in all of life, what is what does it look like to work and to rest um rightly? And so I wish people could see, you know, the the the impact that it makes on these college students. Um, when we leave at the end of the summer, uh the amount of tears of yeah, I don't want to leave this place because it it has really ignited in them something that is true of who the Lord is and has revealed a lot of who they are, um, is a really sweet blessing.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And uh, you know, it's kind of it, I don't know, it feels like that's the inner circle of Marinook. And um only the people that come and experience it in that way will truly walk away uh with that kind of experience. And so we have experiences from a lot of different standpoints, but I really wish people could see uh the value that has on those college students' lives.
SPEAKER_02:Well, how would someone get in touch with you, whether they wanted to enroll their child or if they're a college student wanting to get involved or volunteering or donating, how would how would they get find you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we we have an incredible website, um, marinook.org, m-a-r-a-n-n-o-o-k. So two two N's, two O's. Uh, and it means Marinook means a resting place with the Lord. Uh so they can go to the website, they can email us directly, they can donate on the website, our PO box is on the website, PO box581, LaFed Alabama 36862. Um, they can also email me directly. I mean, we're we're not so busy that you can't email us directly. And so uh my my email is tailor at marinook.org. They can also email info at marinook.org, and we have a team of people uh that manages uh that email inbox to make sure that people get taken care of uh quickly and effectively. And then I would also tell people hey, on November 8th uh from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., we have our 50th anniversary celebration, and it's gonna be at camp. All of our activities are gonna be open. Uh, we've got a comedy show, we've got a mana celebration where we're reflecting back on what God has done and looking forward to what He is going to do. And then we have free food for everyone. Uh, and it's just gonna be it's gonna be a party. We're gonna have hay rides and people movers going around camp. So people can come out there, even if you've never been involved in Marinook and you just show up, uh, you can you can come out and be a part.
SPEAKER_02:And when is this happening again?
SPEAKER_00:November 8th. Um Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And then our website um or excuse me, our address is 10425 Veterans Memorial Parkway, LaFette, Alabama.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, yeah. Well, that sounds awesome. 50 years, that is quite an achievement. That's 50th anniversary. Well, congratulations. And uh Taylor, I've enjoyed talking with you today. Thank you so much for being with me.
SPEAKER_00:All right, thank you so much, Susanna, and have a wonderful day.
SPEAKER_02:You too.
SPEAKER_01:All right, thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpauburn.com. That's gnpauburn.com or call 334 429 740.