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“You are loved,” “Your life matters,” and “Your life has a purpose” are just a few of Randy Winton’s closing remarks on Thursday — the final day of Brewton’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) summer camp. FCA focuses on transforming every athlete and coach through the power of the gospel. Winton has been organizing and leading this annual one-week camp for the past 14 years. The camp is held at T.R. Miller High School. On the final day of camp, Winton has a coach do the final devotion and then several awards are given to the campers.

TRM baseball Coach Kevin Madden did the final devotion. Madden spoke about the importance of teamwork and what it means to be a team player. Every year, the camp give one distinguished award called the “Jim Hayes award” and several Camper of the Week awards. The Jim Hayes award is named in honor of the Brewton native Jim Hayes who was killed by a drunk driver shortly after giving his life to God. Winton said FCA changed Hayes’ life, so Winton gives this award to a sixth grader who is dedicated to FCA and whose life reflects the same level of devotion to God as Hayes’ life did. This year’s Jim Hayes award recipient was Logan Pettus.

This FCA summer camp is only for grades first through sixth. Winton said once students age out of the camp, they typically continue on to help chaperone and lead the camp. The seventh through 12th grade students, who volunteer their help to the camp, each lead a small group of campers, and at the end of the week, those group leaders pick one to three campers that resembled everything FCA stands for.

Winton said this year’s camp theme was all about unity. Their t-shirts say “Unity standing together. Philippians 1:27.” Winton said he focused the week on encouraging campers to care for others outside of themselves.

“We live in a society that is about the self,” Winton said. “That is not what God wants.”