VPBC Admin News

Early May Updates Fridge & Freezer Recently we had some problems requiring repairs for the Victory refrigerator (the one by the ice machine), and a little later, the walk-in refrigerator developed a gas leak and required service.  Thankfully not at the same time!  The refrigeration technician told us that we will have a lot of trouble finding parts for the Victory fridge.  They had to adapt parts to make it work.  It took 2 months to get it repaired.  In the meantime, there was a brother from a group here that overheard us talking about these problems.  He told us about a church that was closing in Upland, they were trying to give away a matching pair, commercial freezer and refrigerator.  So he told them and they contacted us.  This past Friday three of us went down in Josiahs pickup truck with camps trailer to retrieve them. Pool Table Dave Dixon called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if we could use a very nice pool table.   ...

Sunday, May 1, 2022   Today at about 5:10PM David of Teresita Pines, a neighboring camp called.  He told me that at about 3:00PM one of their sites was broke into, vandalized, and graffitied.  He also said that the intruders had stolen food from the kitchen, and took it to a cabin to apparently have a party.  David said that they had called the sheriff and they should arrive soon to investigate.   After talking with David, I went to inform our staff.  Josiah told me that “about 20 minutes earlier two cars entered our camp (this seemed strange because we keep our camp gate closed on Saturdays and Sundays to discourage this) one car went up to the chapel and the other to the dining hall.”  Josiah called on the radio and Tona went out intercept the car by the chapel, it was a SUV with darkened windows.  He said that he saw a lady with a cellphone inside, as soon as she saw Tona she took off.  Matt said that a white Chevy Malibu came up to the di...

  3/30/2022 This past weekend our walk-in refrigerator temperature began to rise above 40 degrees. (Acceptable temps for food storage are 34-40 degrees F.)   The technician came last night (the 29th).   He said that we are low on refrigerant gas, which means that we need to test for leaks.   He observed some ‘wet’ areas at junctions in the system, that need to be tested and probably need to be repaired. But we have another problem,   our unit is charged with a refrigerant gas that is obsolete.   He is researching for compatibility with a modern refrigerant that can be used to top off the system and get us going again.   He said that to replace with the old gas would cost more than our whole system is worth, if it is even available (must be one of those ozone things).   There is a possibility that he will need to evacuate the old gas and then replace all the seals & gaskets in the system.   He showed us that the coils inside the walk-in ...

  Mar 11, 2022  VP MS Camp *Service/Emotional Support, animals at camp? Mar 11, 2022, Friday evening as registration was closing the registrar called us to talk about a new situation. A camper had brought up an animal insisting that it was a service animal. Josiah and I went up to the Chapel to talk with the program person. We told them that we would accept a service animal if there was proper identification and we need to have copies of those documents on file. We let them know that we would likely not accept an emotional support animal, it would have to be picked up by parents or the animal and the camper would have to go home.  Both program people that we talked to assured us that it is a service animal that they will obtain the legal documents and have them emailed to our office at camp. We did not speak to the camper because we did not want to cause any anxiety for them with this issue. I researched all the articles I could pull up from camping websites.  The ...

  March 11, Sat, 2022- VP MS Camp Last night at about 9:30 or 10:00 o'clock there was a call on the radio about both floor drains backing up in the Chapel bathrooms.  Bill and Tona responded right away. This morning at about 7:20AM I went up to the dining hall to give a telephone message to Tona.  Bill called on the radio and asked me to come down to the Chapel and look at the situation. When I got there he already had dug up about 10 foot of main sewage line outside the Chapel. There was a clean out pipe that was vertically standing at ground level, it had raw sewage backing up out of it. Bill said that he had been working on it last night until about midnight.  The old 'clay' septic pipes were enveloped with tree roots that had invaded the pipes and plugged them in 2 or 3 different areas along a 24 foot run of pipe.  I made a quick trip to Victorville to buy 30 feet of 4” septic ABS plastic replacement pipe with connectors and Bill had it connected and wo...