With the unknowns of COVID-19 last spring, many states in the Northeast didn’t permit overnight camps to operate, including New York state. Instead of closing their doors completely for the summer, some camps pivoted to virtual camp and created a whole new experience for their camp families and beyond.
Christie Ko, Executive Director of the Fiver Children’s Foundation which runs Camp Fiver, an overnight camp for children from underserved NY communities, made the decision to not open camp in May, even before Governor Cuomo announced that overnight camps couldn’t operate. “We realized we couldn’t guarantee a COVID-free environment and with many of our families coming from vulnerable populations, we weren’t willing to take a chance. We reached out to our Fiver families to let them know that resident camp wasn’t going to be running and realized even then, people were feeling social isolation and anxiety about health and family economics. We also learned that our families were looking for the same things that we have always provided which is social-emotional support, adult role models and educational activities. Our team put our creative minds together to figure out what we could provide our families.”
Read the full article on Camps Reimagined to Virtual Amid a Pandemic here!
