Dear Camp Friends,
Vermont Governor Phil Scott announced on Friday, May 8th that child care programs and day camps will be allowed to open with certain health guidelines. Overnight camps will likely be allowed to open but guidance for those summer programs is still in progress and will be specifically addressed in coming weeks. The Vermont Camp Association is working with VT state health officials and the American Camp Association to produce a guidebook that will summarize and define best practices and recommendations for day camps and overnight camps, aligned with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control. Once that is approved and in place, it will be up to individual camps to decide whether they can reasonably comply with the regulations.
At this point, even though it has not been determined whether Wachusett will open at all, it has become apparent that the best course for moving forward would be to shorten the season to four weeks beginning July 12th. Additionally, we would only offer two or four week sessions, eliminating the option of three weeks, so that no one would overlap one week with each other. I wanted to get this information out as soon as possible, since I know this will cause families who have signed up starting June 28th to have to alter their summer plans. We truly hope that those affected will seriously consider signing up for two weeks or four weeks between July 12th and August 8th. There is no need to make those changes until we announce whether we will open; hopefully in the next two weeks.
The alteration to our schedule will better allow us to adapt to any new regulations. We will change our preseason to two weeks for counselors, beginning June 28th. This will permit staff to be on the property for two weeks prior to campers arriving and give more time for educating staff on new procedures and provide more time to prepare our facility to meet new guidelines.
The next update will very likely be to let you know whether our camp program will be able to realistically function within the guidelines put forth by the state health officials. If we do move forward, I will share very specific information about guidelines and procedures that will be adopted to provide the safest environment as is practically possible for our campers and staff.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I am sorry that this correspondence still leaves things up in the air as to finalizing summer plans. I remain hopeful that Wachusett boys will be able to expand their friendships in person this summer.
With Kind Regards and Unaliyi, Phil
