Praise God!

We want to start this update by celebrating and praising God that camp will be opening and running this summer! We are so grateful that we will be able to have campers come and hear the Word of God and be trained up as disciples of Him.

Camp Will Look Different

We are very excited about reopening camp, and part of that is caring for the health and safety of everyone who comes here! To help us accomplish this we are working hard to abide by the state of Wisconsin’s guidelines they put forward for camps while reopening. This means that you might see some new policies and forms, and we are working on reshaping some of our program areas/activities to help accommodate social distancing.

Please know that camp is still going to be an amazing, fun, safe, and unique experience for kids, and our mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ through camp ministry” is still very much our focus and goal. We are not changing or compromising on that. We are just taking a different approach to our program aspects than we have in the past.

Here are the documents we’ve been given to help reopen safely:

CDC Field Guide to Camps

Wisconsin State Guidelines

 We Need Your Help

We are doing everything we can to make sure that camp is able to open and run as effectively and hygienically as possible this summer, but we can’t do it alone. We need your help to make sure that your kids are as healthy as can be before they arrive at camp. We are asking that you do some preliminary health screening two weeks before camp to ensure both your child and other campers are as safe as possible while at camp. For further details, please see the Pre-Camp Health Screening document below.

Pre-Screening Document

Clans

In order to better accommodate social distancing guidelines, we are limiting the number of large, all-camp activities and games and are creating clans. Clans are made up of approximately two cabins each, and they will do most things together throughout the week.

Program Areas

We are going to be keeping our program areas up and running throughout the summer, and this summer in particular we get to do that in new and exciting ways! We’ve made changes to the campout, chapel, free time, and other program areas to help facilitate social distancing guidelines. While this is a result of the recent Coronavirus pandemic and government suggestions, we are very excited for the new and fresh ways we get to have camp this summer. We believe these changes will bring new life to the same program areas we’ve been using these past years.

Meals

We are going to be creating adequate spacing during mealtimes by eating our meals in shifts or outside, and having all food served by staff to campers. Campers will not be allowed to serve themselves in the meal line.

Drop-off/Pickup

Drop-off and pickup are going to look fairly different this year. Instead of our usual         4-5pm drop-off, we are extending that time to 3-5pm. We are also asking parents to leave promptly after dropping their child off with their counselor. For pickup on Friday afternoon, there will not be a closing rally open to parents at the end of each camp week.

If your kids are registered for camp you will be receiving an email with further details in the near future.

Health Monitoring at Camp

In addition to pre-screening before camp, we will perform some last-minute screening during the check-in process at the beginning of the week so please be prepared for that when you come to drop your child off.

Please note that any camper that has a temperature of 100.4° or higher will not be admitted to camp.

We will also continue to monitor camper and staff health throughout the week to make sure that nothing develops as the week progresses. This will include frequent temperature checks as well as watching for developing symptoms.

Sending Sick Campers Home

If a camper becomes sick with an illness that could spread, they will move to a designated quarantine area, and our medical staff will implement protocols to identify, control, and contain the illness. If a camper needs to go home, we will contact their parent/guardian to come pick them up.

Increased Sanitation

Our staff are always trained on how to clean effectively and efficiently. During this time, however, we will be increasing how frequently and how thoroughly we are cleaning and sanitizing camp, especially public areas such as the dining hall, doorknobs, light switches, etc. We are also implementing hand-washing times into our schedules to decrease the spread of germs. Who knows? Maybe your kids will wash their hands at home more often? *wink wink*

Conclusion

Through all of these unpredictable times, we have been able to see God’s hand at work in everything that’s been happening and with the timing of camp reopening. We still trust that this is exactly according to His plan, and we are so excited for what God will do this summer in the lives of the campers and even the staff!

As always, if you ever have any questions, please feel free to contact us at

1. [email protected]

or

2. (715) 967-2140