New camps, new community partners and the same energy and enthusiasm on the part of both mark preparations for the Level Ground Initiative’s summer season. Registrations are underway and, thanks to successful experiences, nearly every 2023 Level Ground camper will return to camp this season – in several cases with the addition of younger siblings. The Initiative was founded in 2018 to offer tuition-free camp experiences for youngsters from Maine’s immigrant and refugee communities who otherwise would be unable to attend camp. In 2024, 16 camps have offered space for such campers and the number of community partners identifying and placing campers also continues to grow. Mike Douglass, director of Camp Bishopswood, has welcomed Level Ground campers since the Initiative’s...

“The summer overall was great.” Junior Maine Guide (JMG) program director Ron Fournier reports that “excellent staff,” supported by the longtime team of JMG testers, engaged candidates, and participation by eight camps all contributed to a successful 2023 season. Testing camp, held from July 24-28 at the Stephen Phillips Memorial Preserve in Oquossoc, resulted in a fifty percent passing rate among the 39 JMG candidates. Fournier is enthusiastic about the program’s trajectory. “I feel like we are still building back after COVID,” he said. “Camp programs changed, but we are in a good place. We’re moving in the right direction.” Fournier says that the eight participating camps – Arcadia, Birch Rock, Bryant Pond, Kawahnee, O-AT-KA, Runoia, Winona, and Wyonegonic –...

We are grateful to L.L. Bean for its second summer of playing a pivotal role in making summer camp experiences possible for more than 160 of Maine’s most underserved children. This gift leveraged an additional $230,000 of campership funding, tripling its impact.  L.L. Bean’s thrilling announcement last spring that MSC would again receive $100,000 in funds earmarked for Maine children to attend camps in Maine kicked off efforts to benefit as many children as possible. L.L. Bean also donated $25,000 for the second year to support the administration of MSC’s Level Ground Initiative, serving children from Maine’s immigrant and refugee communities. Lucy Norvell, MSC executive director, said in response to the news: “A child who receives the gift of a...

  Dozens of children from Maine’s immigrant and refugee communities once again enjoyed a summer at camp as part of MSC’s 2023 Level Ground Initiative, a program founded in 2018 to make tuition-free camp experiences possible for children from Maine’s immigrant and refugee communities. Camps welcomed these youngsters via their own connections to communities as well as through placement by Level Ground community partners. During summer 2023 more than 60 children benefited from tuition-free experiences at nonprofit and private camps across the state. Camps’ commitment to Level Ground continues to grow as more camps welcome more campers, a longstanding goal of the Initiative. In all, camps contributed nearly $200,000 in tuition this summer; campers’ attendance varied from one week to...

The American Camp Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Alliance for Camp Health welcome camp directors and out-of-school time professionals to attend a free 75-minute Town Hall-style webinar to ask questions about the current state of the pandemic and the implications of the latest variant on camp operations. We will cover the latest information on the coronavirus, details regarding recent changes to CDC guidance, and current information related to testing and vaccination.   Click here to register.

Kids plunging into lakes, hiking Maine’s mountains, playing sports and making art. And, foremost, connecting with beloved camp peers and role models. It’s all back. In the coming days, thousands of youngsters will once again join friends and mentors in what many call their second home. Once again, Maine youth camps are opening. The majority of youth camps suspended their 2020 seasons. Now, having navigated a shifting landscape of pandemic protocols based on federal CDC guidelines, camp directors are committed to giving kids exactly what they need: time to play, connect, learn and unplug. In other words, the Maine camp experience that has helped children thrive for more than a century. It’s a given that COVID-19’s challenges have been extraordinary....

More than 60,000 youngsters attend camp in Maine each summer. Each one of those kids needs a sense of belonging, camp directors say, and going to camp provides it. For many of those campers, that attendance is made possible by financial aid and campership programs. Several Maine nonprofit camps operate with a core mission of reaching out to underserved families. Take Camp Susan Curtis, located in Stoneham, which offers their program free of charge. The camp serves economically disadvantaged youngsters from Maine, all of whom are referred by schools or agencies. “It’s important to have the same opportunities as their peers,” said Director Terri Mulks. “Camp is such an amazing place of stability for them, learning new skills, and being...

It’s been a hard year for teenagers. Between remote learning, curtailment of extracurricular activities, and socializing primarily via screens, adolescents’ lives have been upended for more than 14 months. Now, as summer approaches, there is a beacon for those teens. Camps are opening. And camp directors say teens need the camp experience more than ever. Matt Pines, and his wife, Monique, own and direct coed Maine Teen Camp in Porter. The camp, which suspended its 2020 season, exclusively serves teens, and Matt Pines says both campers and families tell him and Monique that summer 2021 “feels really profound.” Campers not only need recreation and the time away from home, Matt Pines said, but “It really is an opportunity that has...

With screens now a norm, and the sprint to summer underway, Maine camps haven’t skipped a beat. Maine Summer Camps (MSC), a nonprofit with more than 150 member camps, recently joined efforts with an online events platform to host both its annual business networking and a job fair (with a second in the works). Camps rely on a full spectrum of goods and services – not to mention talented and committed staff members – for successful operations. Going virtual to help meet these needs was all in a day’s work for MSC. Virtual Job Fair Reaches Students Far and Wide: While in-person job fairs typically reach only students enrolled at the host college or university, MSC enlisted the support of...

“I like to think of camps as so much more than childcare.” Helen L. Bren᷉a, president and CEO of the YMCA of Southern Maine, affirms the critical importance of day camp for working families. Yet Bren᷉a says the five different day camps operated by the YMCA of Southern Maine offer programs where children “are not just being babysat.” Rather, she says, “They’re our future leaders. [Camp] helps them to set out on a good path to be our future leaders.” “We do that at all five of our camps,” she said. “We’re proud of the impact we have.” That pride extends to the Y’s commitment to providing financial assistance for camp tuition to families in needs. More than half of...