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Listen here to Episode 5 of our Summer Camp and COVID-19 Series as Drew and David sit down with Cory Harrison, Executive Camping Director and discuss how he was able to open for summer camp this year.
PODCAST NOTES:
Tell us a little bit about your camp please.
YMCA Camp Greenville is located in South Carolina at an elevation of 3500’ in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We have 1400 acres with 2 lakes and 4 waterfalls. Our summer camp is our main money maker but we also run a large school and retreats program. We also do over 300 weddings a year on site.
What did this year look like for your camp?
This year was very unique and quite the learning experience. In March and April we responded early to COVID-19. We wanted to be proactive in this whole pandemic and it paid dividends in our planning and successful operations. We worked closely with The American Camping Association, Center for Disease Control, YMCA, our State Health Department and schools to make this year happen.
What did this summer look like for you?
We ran 8.5 weeks of summer camp and served 1,500 children. We were fortunate enough to have a COVID free summer. For us 1,500 children was 50% capacity. We never compromised on our health protocol and credit that tenacity with much of our success.
What were some of the protocols you put in place?
Because I sit on the YMCA Overnight Camping Committee with 11 other Directors I was able to get information early on and work with the right people to get positive results. We worked closely with ACA and CDC to develop recommendations and got them to our State Health Department very early on. Because we were involved on a national and regional level we were able to offer summer camp.
We’re located in South Carolina and have different state policies for public health than other states and that favored our efforts to open this summer. We also have a strong partnership with the largest healthcare provider in the state, so we received great support from them once again.
How did you work with parents this year and cultivate a good relationship with them?
We are very connected with our parents. We don’t view them as a pain, we don’t tell them how to parent, we see them as a very valuable asset. We’ve built trust through communication by way of some creative methods in recent years. So when COVID hit this year parents already trusted us to keep their children safe.
What would you tell someone who is envious of your situation and what did you learn from this year?
We recognize that we are fortunate, it also took a lot of hard work and creativity. If your story isn’t the same as ours you still have options, but you need to be creative and pivot. We also saw a lot of braveness from parents, staff and campers. We could not guarantee a COVID free summer but we did our best and stuck to our protocols, our feedback has never been more positive than this summer.
Do you have hope for our camping industry?
I do, I think we’ll come out of this experience stronger and even more creative. For example we always wanted to stagger meals but never had the courage to do so, but we were forced to do that this year and it was great so we’re not going back to the old way. We saw a lot of creativity in serving the campers better this year. I think we’re going to be better and safer for persevering through this year. I would encourage fellow camping advocates to stick with camping because we’ll need them and summer camp in the future.
Thank you.
