Shibley Summer 2020 Announcement

It is with a heavy heart that we write to you today to announce that Shibley Day Camp will not operate this summer. We know that this is the right decision for our Shibley Day Camp community, and we will be back and better than ever for Summer 2021.

As the country reopens over the next few weeks and months, families and individuals will have to make decisions with which they are comfortable. Camps and businesses must do the same and we appreciate and understand that we will not all come to the same conclusion. We have all assessed the risks and made a variety of choices throughout the last 3 months. We have many more decisions to make as we work together to see this pandemic through.

When schools closed and the state shut down in March we were optimistic that summer would come, and camp would open. We expected to have answers and clarity that we still do not have. There is absolutely nowhere that we would rather be than with your children and our staff at camp. To think of a summer without pitching to the super seniors, dancing with senior camp or climbing through the playgrounds with our junior campers is disheartening.

Thinking of camp while continuously reminding people to keep their distance, virtually the opposite of everything we believe in, was becoming equally as disheartening. A socially distanced environment is contrary to the closeness of the Shibley community.

We also cannot say with high enough certainty that we will have a coronavirus-free camp community, and there are still many questions about the virus. Our community includes our campers and staff. And it includes you, the campers’ grandparents, the parents and siblings of our staff, and additional caretakers, all of who will be in close contact with campers and others outside of camp hours.

Outside of our own families, Shibley is our life. We think about camp every day of the year. We are heartbroken. It seems inconceivable to have to wait 13 more months to return to our summer home together, but when we get there it will be exponentially more special.

Thank you for being part of our community. We miss you all and will continue to provide virtual and in-person programming (when permitted) throughout the year so that we can stay connected until we meet again for summer 2021.

Sincerely,

Heath, Stefanie, Randi & Bob