OUR HISTORY

Barefoot Republic Camp began as a vision in 1991. During that summer, Tommy Rhodes, the founder of Barefoot, served as a 19 year old camp counselor at Camp Mac outside of Birmingham, Alabama. Over the 3 months of camp, Tommy witnessed for the first time how God could use his life to impact the lives of others. This powerful redemption led to a restoration of hope within a young man scarred by a life filled with bad choices. Tommy left that summer with a God-sized dream and burden to provide similar opportunities to youth like himself who could not afford similar experiences.

Tommy Rhodes,
Barefoot Republic Founder
& Executive Director

Upon completing his undergraduate degrees at Belmont University in Biology and Chemistry, Tommy was accepted to Vanderbilt University's Ph.D. program in Biomedical Science. Although Tommy had never forgotten his calling to camp ministry, he felt that he would first have to attain significant status and wealth to launch the vision. However, during his third year of the program, Tommy shared with his wife, Lane, that God had revealed now was the time. After much prayer and due diligence, they discovered a stunning 55 acre farm on a 20,000 acre lake outside Scottsville, KY. Tommy felt led to leave his Ph.D. program and sell his baseball card collection to secure the land and initiate Barefoot Republic Camp.

Barefoot Republic seeks to celebrate diversity and build unity through a diverse platform of artistic, athletic and action adventure programs. To date, Barefoot has been able to provide 7 summers of camp programming, although not on the existing property. Due to the nature of Barefoot's mission and the lack of initial capital, the Board of Directors felt it crucial to demonstrate the impact of our ministry through hosting camp at local retreat centers and universities. This vision was affirmed by the over 1500 camp participants, 600 volunteer staff and a dramatic increase in financial support over the past 7 years. Therefore, we find ourselves in a position of excitement as we embark to establish the first permanent Barefoot Republic Camp in 2009.