A group planning to revitalize Camp Canonicus has closed on the 300-acre property in Exeter and North Kingstown.  Records show that Canonicus Ministries paid $500,000 to purchase the camp – which is valued at over $3 million – from American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island on Aug. 14.

“We’re very excited,” said Tony Pappas, who serves on the board of Canonicus Ministries. “It’s been a two-year- plus journey. There were moments we were quite discouraged, and now, all of a sudden, we are home.”

Canonicus Ministries is a relatively new nonprofit led by members of the Baptist community who want to bring back religious retreats, summer camps, conferences and other events at Camp Canonicus. The group formed after ABCORI, an association of 67 Baptist churches in Rhode Island, announced plans to sell the bucolic, wooded property – which in turn sparked a movement to save it.

Camp’s future was uncertain after vote to sell property

Rhode Island’s Baptists have used Canonicus as a Christian camp and retreat since the 1940s, and generations of campers remember it as a formative experience.

“In our denomination, particularly, Camp Canonicus has been the central place by which we identify ourselves,” Charles Hartman, the camp’s pastor for 40 years, told The Providence Journal in 2024.

However, by 2024, the camp was bleeding money and had become increasingly expensive to insure, according to ABCORI’s Board of Mission, which voted to sell the property that year. Pappas said that decision upset and frustrated a number of people who believed that there were other, less drastic alternatives.

Ultimately, ABCORI held a meeting where delegates from all the churches could vote on whether to sell the property to the Department of Environmental Management, which was interested in purchasing Camp Canonicus so that the land would be preserved. A majority of delegates voted against doing so.

Those hoping to save the camp ultimately formed Canonicus Ministries, an independent religious nonprofit organization, and offered to take over the property.

“We feel that camping changes lives,” Pappas said.

What’s next for Camp Canonicus?

Under the terms of the arrangement, the group will pay $100,000 a year to ABCORI for five years. Pappas said that a donor provided the money for the down payment and the Roosa Fund – which is based on Block Island, where he lives – also contributed $100,000.

Now, their next challenge is raising money, recruiting volunteers and restarting programming at Camp Canonicus, which hasn’t been operational in recent years.

“We’re entering a big fundraising drive,” he said. “Our goal for the launch is $2.5 million. We’re roughly a quarter of the way there.”

Pappas said that Canonicus Ministries plans to hold a 75th anniversary revival on Sept. 20, which will be open to anyone interested in finding out what Camp Canonicus is all about, and is already scheduled to host its first retreat group in mid-October.

Camp Canonicus historically focused on serving the Baptist community, he said, but the new group that owns the camp doesn’t want to limit itself. Programming will be open to “anybody who wants to get away, and be refreshed,” regardless of religious background.

The group plans to resume summer camps next July, and also wants to start offering new forms of programming such as sailing camps and vocational training, he said.

“We’ve got a lot on our plate, but it’s all good,” Pappas said.