HoneyRock was started by Coach Harve Chrouser, his wife, Dot, and a team of Wheaton College professors and coaches as a leadership and character formation laboratory for college students and youth. This group found the camp-like, outdoor environment to be an ideal place for building relationships, facing challenges, working hard, and playing well. In Coach’s own words:
“While Honey Rock is called a camp, it is essentially an educational project designed to be a leadership laboratory providing an internship experience where the student undertakes total leadership responsibility of the cabin group in a camp-living situation. The Honey Rock idea was to create for the student a new kind of teaching-learning environment, unlike the school model.”
- "We sought to deformalize teaching and make it more relational and discipling.”
- “We want to instill a desire for involvement which outweighs the desire to be entertained.”
- “It is our intentional plan to structure into everyone’s experience at HoneyRock a reasonable amount of stress and struggle compatible with the age group.”
- “To be involved in a work experience day after day is for most [youth and young adults] a new test…”
- “College should help the student make three discoveries… proof of learning, proof of self, and proof of God.”
Wheaton College, one of the leading Christian liberal arts colleges in the country, has owned and operated HoneyRock since 1951. Throughout its long history, HoneyRock has developed and trained young people and college students to impact the church and society worldwide for Christ.
HoneyRock has grown into a year-round leadership laboratory of Wheaton College with programs for youth, emerging adults, and outdoor adventure and ministry professionals alike.
