Credit: Northern Pines Camp

If you’re hoping for that Meatballs experience, I’ve got some bad news.

Ah, summer camp. A time for fun in the sun, fresh air, and substandard food. It’s a place where kids become teenagers, teenagers become adults, and introverts plan elaborate schemes to get themselves sent home so they can go back to playing video games. Summer camp has been an integral part of the American youth experience for decades, and for the most part, there’s never been anything stopping kids from going every summer. Unfortunately, previous summers have not had a pandemic to contend with.

The Center for Disease Control recently released their updated guidelines for camps to be held this summer, and as you may expect, they are much more stringent. The most prevalent new requirement for pandemic-period camps is, of course, social distancing, but if you’ve ever been to a summer camp, you would know that keeping that many children away from each other a week, to say nothing of 2-3 months, is basically impossible. Additionally, open camps would need to isolate themselves as much as humanly possible, which means no field trips, no field days, and no parental visits. As such, many camps around the country have had to make a tough call: stay open for a decidedly diet camp experience, or close down and leave the kids wanting?

One camp, Chimney Corners Camp in Western Massachusetts, has decided to opt for the latter option, much to their disappointment. “The cancellation of camp this summer is profoundly disappointing for all of us after what already feels like an eternity of frustration and uncertainty,” Shannon Donovan-Monti, executive director at Chimney Corners Camp wrote to parents. “There are no words that can take away the heartbreak of depriving our children and ourselves of something that has given us such joy and connection to others.”

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Some parents have argued that their kids need camp, not just for the sake of their development, but because an isolated camp may be safer for them than at home. Others have countered that a single COVID-19 carrier could turn an entire camp into a micro-pandemic.

Fina Barouch, a physician and parent of two in Boston, told NPR that she would not be sending her kids to camp for this very reason. “It only takes one person to be shedding virus when completely asymptomatic, and my concern is that this could turn into something like the nursing home pandemic, where it just spreads exponentially,” she said.

At this point, many parents and campers have resigned themselves to hunkering down and powering through the summer in isolation in the hopes that things can return to normal in time for summer 2021.