“Everything we do is intentional. Social emotional learning (SEL) is why it’s intentional.” Ash Bahi, camp director of Agassiz Village, a youth camp located in Poland, Maine, smiled as he said this in a recent virtual meeting. Camps statewide serving children from Maine, the nation, and the globe, are similarly mission driven. And Bahi, who took the helm as Agassiz Village’s camp director in 2019, wants to share that intentionality, make it a “shining beacon” for the hundreds of campers in residence for two-week sessions come summer 2021. Since its founding in the mid-1930s, Agassiz Village has provided children from underserved communities with a camp experience. With a geographical focus on greater Boston, its first campers included newsboys and...

“Kids need this so much right now.” Sue McMullan knows. As director of Alford Lake Camp, a traditional residential girls’ camp in Hope, McMullan has for decades committed herself to the camp’s mission in hosting campers and staff from around the world. Today, she says, a summer 2021 camp experience is absolutely vital for youngsters. COVID-19 may have put camp on hold in 2020, but McMullan says summer 2021 will be different. “We say to families, ‘we plan it to be all systems go, but the way I answer a question today may be different [another day],” she says.  “We want to be together, celebrate friendships and relationships, and have fun.” “What is happening in the world” particularly points to...

The Wonders of Wolfe’s Neck Farm “Who doesn’t love collecting eggs and going in with the cows?” Andrew Lombardi, public programs manager at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport, sees local schoolchildren’s exuberance for learning outdoors firsthand. “Animal husbandry is most popular,” he says. “The stuff with the critters.” At Wolfe’s Neck Farm this fall, about 200 children from three RSU 5 schools are learning about those critters, among many other topics, in an outdoor learning collaboration designed to help meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The five-week program, which concludes on Dec. 18, serves students from Freeport’s Mast Landing and Morse Street schools, along with Durham Community School. With a total of about 200 students – divided into two...

Last spring, with the 2020 camp season approaching and COVID-19’s unpredictable impact, camp owners and directors across Maine may have been certain of only one thing: uncertainty. Camp professionals faced the challenges of assessing CDC and state COVID-19 guidelines, the daunting task of evaluating their programmatic and physical capacities considering the virus, and the difficult reality of financial ramifications posed by the pandemic. Uncertainty may be an understatement. Only around 20 of the state’s more than 200 youth camps opened their doors for the 2020 season, but their strategies to best ensure healthy campers and staff worked. Camp 2020 certainly included program modifications and strict adherence to safety protocols, but camp directors say the efforts reaped huge rewards. Kids had...

Like scores of Maine youth camp organizations, leaders of Camp Bishopswood in Hope weighed the coronavirus pandemic’s potential impact this summer and chose to suspend its season. But the coed camp, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, was far from idle. With a crew of fewer than 20 staff members living, working, and embedded onsite, Bishopswood’s operations were undoubtedly different. The camp’s spirit, however, was as robust as ever.

Summer has a vastly different look, across Maine and the nation. But for some youngsters, the chance to socialize, play, and learn with peers – amidst the pandemic – became a reality. Camp life may be modified, but at Camp Ketcha, executive director Tom Doherty says the decisions to open their doors is giving youngsters and their families an enormous boost.

In any other June, camp directors like Norman Thombs, Executive Director of Camp Mechuwana in Winthrop, would be immersed in staff training and final preparations in anticipation of youngsters’ arrival. But, as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, only about two dozen camps across Maine will open this summer – in July for shortened sessions and an abundance of Covid-19 protective modifications. The majority, like Mechuwana, have suspended their 2020 seasons.

Maine’s summer camp professionals are thinking positively about welcoming 2020 campers in person come June. Yet the continuing unknowns concerning COVID-19 have prompted many camps to focus on sharing the primary values of camp – relationships, activities, and fun – right now. Among those camps is Pine Tree Camp, whose camper population of children and adults with disabilities just might need connection more than ever.

(First in a series of how camps are engaging their campers in a time of unknowns) Summer camp is months off. Face-to-face contact is limited. And children are home, away from the daily school connections with friends, teachers, and mentors. The challenges of the coronavirus pandemic have made life very, very different for us all. Enter Matt Cornish, director of Camp Beech Cliff on Mount Desert Island, and his morning Facebook Live video gathering. With fun and with warmth, Cornish has signed on at 9:30 a.m. all week. Between 30 and 40 kids and adults have tuned in live for 20 minutes of camp songs, fun, and Cornish’s gentle reminder of the camp’s goals encouraging kindness, acceptance, and the commitment...

Every morning, the 19 students in Eric Robinson’s 7th grade homeroom at Nokomis Middle School, in Newport, begin the day learning about living in, exploring, and appreciating their natural world. Yes, Robinson spends a bit of the 25-minute homeroom period on morning announcements, but since September he has dedicated the remaining 20 minutes to teaching the Junior Maine Woodsman curriculum. That curriculum is part of the Junior Maine Guides program, established in 1937 by an act of the Maine legislature. Today the program is a partnership between the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and Maine Summer Camps, a nonprofit membership organization providing a broad range of support to about 130 Maine youth camps. And since its establishment more...