“Hephzibah is the place to be.”
“I love coming to Hephzibah every day because I love the food and the teachers.”
“We love coming to summer camp because we get to go outside a lot.”
That’s just some of the feedback from this summer’s campers—Covid-19 isn’t stopping the fun for Hephzibah’s Summer Day Camp program!
Camp is in full-swing and the kids are having a blast while following safety protocol guidelines for the novel coronavirus. There are still open spots available for Sessions 2 and 3 if you are looking for childcare or fun for your elementary school-aged children. As always our program fees are on a sliding scale to help meet the needs of all families.
Hephzibah Summer Day Camp goes from 8 am – 6 pm, Monday through Friday. Three, 3-week sessions are being offered at two elementary school locations in Oak Park, IL. We have a few openings for the remaining two sessions(Session 2: June 29 – July 17 (Closed July 3), and Session 3: July 20 – August 7) so please click here if you are interested in learning more.
Per COVID safety-guidelines, camp group sizes are limited to 10 children per 2 staff-members. All of the children and staff wear masks when indoors and outdoors (when 6 feet distance cannot be maintained). Groups do not interact with each other at any time throughout the day. Additionally, parents or visitors are not allowed in the buildings and there is curbside drop-off and pick-up. All high touch surfaces are disinfected every 2 hours and lunch and snacks are served in individual packaging.
This might sound restricting, but the children have been champions adjusting to the changes and are able to do almost all of the activities they enjoyed during other summers with the exception of going to the pool and taking the bus for field trips.
The kids spend the days doing specialty activities, themed days, group games, art projects, water days, community exploration, playing with toys, learning new games, dancing, karaoke, cartooning, scooters, bike rides and time with friends. A new addition to this year’s program includes a partnering with the Oak Park Education Foundation to offer Lego Mindstorm programming classes to our children via Zoom.
The children love water day, cooking projects (so far they have made smores, butter, and banana pudding), hide and seek, games in the gym, playing with friends and toys, spending time with the staff, finger knitting, riding scooters and bikes, “learning about more people,” making a tik-tok video, kickball, nature week, watching roly-poly bugs and ants, dancing, searching for the camp mascots who are hidden in the building, making a canoe and forts, and playing outside.
The children have adapted very well to handing the safety protocols. They wear masks and maintain social distance with few complaints.
“We reinforce these safety protocols by giving verbal praise for being a “masked crusader” and “keeping your force field up,” says Amy O’Rourke, Hephzibah’s Director of Day Care.
“The staff and children are really enjoying the opportunity to have more 1:1 time. We are able to offer bike rides and scooter rides in the community, and more walking field trips in the community that are more difficult with larger groups.”
As one parent reached out to us, saying “Thank you so much to you and all your dedicated team members who have made Camp Hephzibah 2020 a truly great time for our two campers. Our children are absolutely loving it. And we’re all appreciating your care and concern for everyone’s health and safety. The whole situation is Such a relief from quarantine blues.“
If you are interested in enrolling your children in Hephzibah’s Summer Day Camp for Sessions 2 and/or 3, please contact Annette Anderson, aanderson@hephzibahhome.org.
