Summer 2020 – FAQ
During this uniquely challenging time, supporting each other is our primary focus. What that looks like is changing by the day – and we appreciate your understanding. Our plan right now is to run Camp and Family Camp as long as it is safe to do so. We will likely have a delayed start, but we don’t know today what exactly that means yet. If the situation changes, we will inform all families via email and include updates on this page.
Our next scheduled Town Hall meeting is Tuesday, May 19th at 7pm. Please save that date in your calendar. We will have more information about that meeting in the coming weeks.
As always, our highest priority is the health and safety of our campers, families, and staff.
Our team is receiving frequent updates from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the American Camp Association, the Vilas County Health Department, and the Wisconsin State Department. We will continue to keep you up to date on how COVID-19 may affect Interlaken’s summer season.
Here are answers to many of the questions that we have been asked:
General Questions
- If you cancel Camp for your camper before June 1st, there is a no-penalty cancellation policy. You can choose from the options below what you want to happen with the payments you have made so far to Camp:
- Donate all or part of your payments made so far to Camp for a full 1:1 match from JCamp 180 and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation*
- Roll all or part of your payments made so far to Camp towards summer 2021
- Have all or part of your payments made so far to Camp refunded to you.
- If you cancel Camp for your camper after June 1st, we suggest you purchase Camp Insurance from TravMark: the cancel for any reason plan.
- Mark Ceslowitz
- mark@travmark.com
- Tel:917-842-2292
- Click here for more information about Camp Insurance: TravMark Document
- If Camp is canceled, you have the following options for your payments made so far to Camp:
- Donate all or part of your payments made so far to Camp for a full 1:1 match from JCamp 180 and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation*
- Roll all or part of your payments made so far to Camp towards summer 2021
- Have all or part of your payments made so far to Camp refunded to you.
*Now more than ever, Camp Interlaken could benefit from your support. With the ongoing operational costs, facility maintenance, staffing costs, and impact of the hundreds of thousands of dollars already spent towards the summer, and more, we are looking ahead to 2020, 2021, and beyond to ensure the continuity of our program. Additionally, if Camp does open this summer, we know that many of our families have been affected financially by this pandemic, and their need for financial assistance will be greater than it was before Covid-19. If you are able to make a donation of any size, we would appreciate your contribution.
We will have so much more information in the upcoming weeks. We will likely make some decisions around mid-May. We have the luxury of time. Many camps in the country begin almost three weeks before us. We have the opportunity to watch trends and best practices in the field before we make our decisions.
On May 19th we will host our next Town Hall meeting to give you an update of where we are at that time with regards to Camp. Information to follow.
Other financial questions
Yes, fees will reflect the cost of Camp for the length of time that Camp will be open. We do not have these details yet as we don’t know how long our campers will be at Camp.
No, Camp has not booked these flights yet. We are confident that flights will be easy to secure once we have decisions made about start dates, and families will purchase their flights this year on their own.
We will have these policies set by the time we share decisions about the summer. We will share this then.
If you are applying for financial aid for the first time, please contact Nicole Hanlon at nhanlon@jccmilwaukee.org or 414-967-8240. She can get you the information and application that you need to apply for scholarships.
If you are asking for additional financial aid for Camp, please contact Samantha ZumMallen, our scholarship coordinator. You can contact her by emailing <ahref=”mailto:SZumMallen@jccmilwaukee.org”> SZumMallen@jccmilwaukee.org or <ahref=”mailto:scholarship@jccmilwaukee.org”>scholarship@jccmilwaukee.org or by calling 414-967-8180.
No, Camp will not process the automatic billing for May payments. If you’d like to make a May payment, you can do that through your dashboard on CampMinder when you log into your account.
Once we have communicated with you about an opening day, we will resume payments.
Medical Questions
Our top priority has always been the health and safety of our campers, families and staff at Camp. This continues to be our top priority.
As always, our fully-equipped health center is staffed 24 hours a day. Our medical team includes a doctor, nurse, and medical assistants. The American Camp Association is working together with the Center for Disease Control to create a guide for camps to open safely this summer. Camp Interlaken will evaluate the recommendations by the CDC and the Vilas County Health Department to assure that if we can open that we open safely following all the standards that we must follow. These procedures and practices will be shared with Camp families prior to Camp opening.
Yes. As they are released, we will follow all guidelines set forth by the Health Departments and the CDC. We will conduct additional screenings before departing for Camp and upon arrival at Camp.
If you have a camper who takes medication and will be taking medication at Camp this summer you need to register for the Camp Meds service. This needs to be done as soon as possible and at the latest by May 24th. Should the current situation change, Camp Meds has agreed to ship all medications to the camper’s homes if need be. If you have questions about how to register for Camp Meds, please go to http://www.campmeds.com/.
Camp Forms
Do not worry about deadlines for your medical forms. We know that you cannot get to your doctor’s office right now for a physical. The American Camp Association requires that you need to have had a physical within 23 months of attending Camp. Send the form to your physician; they will get to it when they can.
As for your other forms, they are available, and we would like you to complete them as soon as possible. You can find them through the Forms and Documents Tab on the dashboard of your CampMinder account. We will continue sending the weekly Hodaot on Thursdays. Please keep an eye out for them in your inbox.
Summer Staffing
Yes, we have been fully staffed since February. We were blessed this summer to have more staff applicants for this summer than we needed. And, with internships, colleges and abroad programs being canceled, we have past staff reaching out to us to see if we might have a space for them at Camp.
We are still hopeful that our international staff will be able to join us this summer. We should know more by mid-May.
In the meantime, we started working on a plan in the month before the JCC shut down to figure out how to cover each of our chug (activity) areas if we didn’t have any international staff to run them as well as fill our counselor positions. We are working on a plan to cover our international staff who work in our kitchen and in our maintenance department, and we are confident that we will have plenty of staff to cover our needs at Camp if our international staff cannot make it.