Many summer events have been cancelled as a result of coronavirus, but some camps are still remaining open, hoping to run their summer operations somewhat normally.
The Springs Ministries, near Gladwin, is one of the camps trying to find a safe path forward. Dan Kohns is the director of the camp, he said his camp is tentatively still open and planning to take campers as early as mid-June.
He said “We’re tentatively just moving towards that date, until we get information that would change it. So we’re working at hiring summer staff and preparing our program and our properties, getting ready to do camp like we have, it’ll be different as we are working at protecting and keeping the environment safe for our campers.”
Kohn said keeping the campers safe is a top priority, so planning for the summer includes extra precautions. He said usually the camp has multiple programs running at the same time, this will still occur, but he said there won’t be gatherings between them. Kohn said The Springs is also working with local physicians to develop safety plans and procedures, he said they’re also trying to be attentive to what other camps are doing and what officials are saying.
Another point of uncertainty for camps is how many campers they’ll see. Kohn said experts are saying there will likely be a decrease in campers in the region this summer.
“They projected about an 80% attendance, but we’re not sure. It’s kinda like we’re at 80% or we may be way up simply because parents are ready for their children to be out, and they need to be out,” said Kohn.
He said his camp at least so far appears to be an outlier in this, with early registrations above last years, but he said that like most things right now it could easily change.