150 days… hope in reality

There is an abundance of fact-based studies exploring the interplay of the pandemic, loss of camp, and opportunity for healing. Come summer, there is no doubt in my mind that our four children will need: a place to land… a place that is quiet from the constant stream of negative news… a place where they can feel truly free… to see one another’s smile, to hug each other, to play, to have routines, to engage their senses in the great Ontario outdoors, and be a part of something meaningful. I expect that you hold these same things in mind for your children as well. We believe that an important part of kids’ mental health is the opportunity to create positive and meaningful relationships. This has always been part of our core camp mission. You can learn more about our views on Camp as a place for healing by listening to Sol as a guest on Howie’s recent podcast episode!

While we don’t yet know what specific measures will be required, we do know that our proposal to the Ministry of Health was enthusiastically endorsed by a panel of experts at the Hospital for Sick Children.  Our Task Force has been in direct conversation with Ontario Public Health which is reviewing our proposal.  They have also indicated that the last thing they want is to “steal summer camp again”.

In the summer of 2020, New Brunswick and American overnight camps were successful in creating safe overnight camp experiences.  Also, and in Ontario, sixty Day Camps operated serving close to 4000 campers without any confirmed cases reported.

Our knowledge has grown since a year ago. We’ve seen that several strategies that have proven effective in schools blend nicely with camps. At camp:

• We are almost always outside and can spend even more time outside.
• Cabin walls are thin and circulate fresh air inside cabins.
• We have so much space and can use it to create distance between groups.
• We call them cabin groups, but they work just like “cohorts”.
• We are a bubble and are prepared to tighten our bubble even more.

For the same reason that Walden’s founder, Ted Cole, was sent to camp to escape Polio, overnight camps keep children and young adults inside a country bubble and thus away from vulnerable populations and the temptations of super-spreader events. In other words, camp may have risk, but keeping kids at home may be riskier.

For 50 Years, there have been three components to the basic promise we make to our families. We promise to do our best to:

• Host kids on our beautiful site,
• Keep kids safe,
• Help kids make friendships that will last a lifetime!

We do a lot of things at Walden… but some of the things are closer to this mission than others.  For example: we know that we are cancelling Field Trips.  They would be unnecessarily complicated to organize in a COVID summer and while they are fun, they aren’t central to our mission.  Having said that, Canoe Trips, especially for our oldest kids, are profound contributors to our mission.  Our Heads of Trip are giving consideration to how these trips can be executed safely.

The greatest learning from our American counterparts is that there is no single magic intervention that will protect us against COVID transmission at camp.  Rather, the combination of interventions, even if each is applied imperfectly, is collectively effective.  These interventions include: Isolation before,Testing, Screening, A protocol if COVID is detected, Cohorting, Optimizing outside time, Masking, and Bubbling. (IT’S A COMB!)

Society is providing us with so much information that is inconsistent and confusing.  The Summer of 2021 will need to be simpler.  Just like the lessons we learned from Thoreau’s Walden, an everyday-life can be charged with meaning when we focus on the goodness of humankind and the profound lessons that we can learn from nature.

The landscape is ever-changing. For example, one plan is to eat breakfast in two shifts and eat outside all together for lunch and dinner (eating together is absolutely at the core of achieving our mission). We are ready for this plan, but we will also remain ready to go back to our full camp eating all meals together inside if conditions permit.All of our decisions will be made in good faith and using the information available to us at the time that we make them. We will hope to get better and better at this as we go.

There is always some risk sending kids to camp.  So too is there a risk keeping them home and letting them ride their bikes around the block.  Our goal is to create a summer experience where the benefits of camp are so great that parents are enthusiastic about sending their children and the risks so reasonable, that they can trustingly enjoy the time that their children are in our care.

In a normal summer, our staff have a tremendous responsibility. Hopefully, our own children will be staff one day soon. Keeping Walden Staff nourished, well-rested, entertained, and developing skills is an integral part of fulfilling our mission. Requiring our staff to bubble with us is an enormous ask; they have already enthusiastically expressed a willingness to rise to the call. But as you hear about the many things we will be doing to make sure our staff are getting the rest and fun that they deserve, we hope you will nod to yourself and think, “The happier Sol and his team make the staff, the happier my kids will be at camp.”

Young kids bring spirit and cheer. Similarly, our international staff bring special skills and added maturity. We have signed up our usual number of new campers for the different programs that we normally offer. So too have we encouraged our 2020 staff to all reapply. We aren’t just planning to be open, we are planning to be open for all of our Waldeners.

Hope will not make more vaccines available. But just as we saw with the school-opening question in the late summer, when we have hope and are willing to discuss these hopes with our family and friends, it helps us as a society to place a value and a priority on some things over others. It isn’t time to petition the government about camp – please don’t! But continue to hope for camp. We believe it can make a difference.Our staff certainly have HOPE! Every single member of our Leadership Team has expressed determination about returning this summer and a large proportion of our staff have told us the same! The most common sentiments we hear time and time again from them are: “Camp is my light at the end of this dark tunnel. The summer away from Walden made me realize how important it is in my life.”

As with our screen-free policy, the actions of one family affect the whole community. Your family’s behaviour affects other families. Forgive me for conjuring up this over-used cliche but “we are all in this together”. If campers are required to limit their contacts during the last week of school, we will ask the community to support these efforts equally.

We will share with you significant decisions and ask for your continued trust as we make them. We will be building an online Walden COVID “Safety Plan” for parents and staff. This plan will be a “living document” online and will be refined throughout the Spring.

• • The only things we have officially cancelled for 2021 are Field Trips and Intercamp.

• • Yes, we are deep into the planning for screening and testing strategies before, during, and on arrival at camp.

• • Coach Bussing and Visitor’s Day may, but have not yet been, eliminated.

• But except for these items, we will be planning and ready for all the other facets of the usual Walden Summer.