Our hearts go out to parents and children in this time of unimagined challenges. We hope and pray for your family’s health. Kids need camp – for their mental and physical health, for fun, connection, joy and learning. To be carefree together and in nature.

Camp families have a legitimate and important need to know how COVID may impact camp ‘21. We wish we had more info, but our consultations with both medical and camp experts have produced more questions than answers. The truth is that nobody can know how COVID will affect us in late June.

Here’s what we know so far:

1. We are confident that camp will run! We are also confident that by June we will have a reliable instant saliva test, and that we will test every arriving camper and staff before they enter camp. We will always operate under the guidance of public health authorities.
2. Camps that operated safely in Maine and Texas in summer ‘20 used repeated testing and initial cohort isolation to keep everyone safe. Their success fuels our optimism. As does the initiative to start instant testing at airports.
3. The Ontario Camps Association is working with provincial public health to create detailed COVID guidelines for camps. ETA for the guidelines is February. Please wait for detailed info till then.
4. As public health guidelines unfold over the late winter and spring, we will all need to be flexible. Camp policies and programs may have to change in order to keep our campers, families and staff safe. It’s too soon to guess at any of this; we’ll post updates promptly.

Camp has always been a haven, a children’s world where they play and laugh and learn and grow, where they find their best self and glory in newfound confidence. Kids need camp – for their mental and physical health, for fun, connection, joy and learning. To be carefree together and in nature. Summer 2021, more than ever, will be that place.