Ketcha Outdoors is a year round charitable nonprofit organization in Scarborough, Maine that serves the community in southern Maine with programs centered around youth development, youth camps, and family enrichment programs. Ketcha Outdoors says, “We strive to get children, youth and families outdoors on our 107 acres of meadows, forests, streams, and wetlands to appreciate what nature has to offer.”

Ketcha Outdoors offers a number of high quality, enriching programs for the community, including a number of summer day camps for toddlers, children, and teenagers. During the day camps, the campers engage in enriching and fun activities including classes in outdoor living skills, environmental education, and visit Ketcha’s farm where they learn about gardening and animal care. Students also spend time engaging in arts and craft projects, swimming, archery, music classes, a ropes course, drama classes, and a variety of sports. A scholarship program is available for low-income families to ensure that all children are able to attend Camp Ketcha. 

In addition to providing summer day camps, Ketcha Outdoors also offers other programs including after school camps for children and nature-based preschool and kindergarten programs. Every Monday, Ketcha Outdoors offers Mucky Mondays, where children and their families can meet and learn about barn animals. 

Going Solar with RE-volv

By going solar with RE-volv, Ketcha’s 14 kW system will save the nonprofit more than $38,000 over the lifetime of their solar system, which will save Ketcha Outdoors more than 15% off their monthly electricity bill. Ketcha Outdoors can use their solar savings to invest their savings back into their programs, including their summer camps for children, school field trips, and after-school programming. 

By going solar with RE-volv, Ketcha Outdoors was able to go solar for $0 down and will pay back RE-volv for the cost of their solar system over time. Their monthly solar lease payments will be added to RE-volv’s Solar Seed Fund, a revolving fund for solar that helps more nonprofits across the country go solar! 

Community Collaboration for Solar 

The Solar Ambassador team at the University of New England helped bring solar to Ketcha Outdoors by managing the project, running the crowdfunding campaign to raise the upfront capital needed to bring solar to Ketcha Outdoors, and running a community engagement campaign to help educate the community about the importance of solar energy. As Solar Ambassadors, the University of New England students learned about solar energy, technology, and policy and gained hands-on experience leading a solar project from start to finish. 

This project was funded through a crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds needed to bring solar to Ketcha Outdoors. Thank you to the 111 generous donors who donated to this project to help bring solar to Ketcha Outdoors! View the crowdfunding video for this campaign below to learn more about Ketcha Outdoors and the solar crowdfunding campaign.