Nearly a year ago today, our nation was shutting down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, taking children out of schools and parents out of work, sending them to complete their daily tasks from their homes to prevent further spread of the virus. A year later, and not much has seemed to have changed. A lot of folks are still working from home, and kids are still doing virtual learning, though with people beginning to receive the vaccine, it seems that we may be able to return to our “normal” state sooner rather than later. COVID struck just a few months before summer camps all over the nation reopened, and for some, it put an end to the summer before it even began. While not all camps were able to open in the summer, there were a small number which successfully navigated the COVID issue ensuring campers were safe, but also got to enjoy what summer camp has to offer.

Swift Nature Camp was one of the few overnight summer camps that operated during 2020 through the COVID-19 Pandemic, though it was not without sacrifice. Much of what we knew about camp had to be changed in order to maximize the safety of both campers and staff. We asked campers and staff to quarantine for weeks before coming to camp to minimize the chances of them becoming infected by going out into public. The schedule was reworked so that cabin groups would not intermingle with other cabins, so that if only one cabin were to have a case of COVID, we would have been able to isolate them to ensure there was no further infection. Face masks were mandatory, though due to the length of camp, we were able to take them off, as no one was allowed to enter or leave camp, effectively giving us a “safety bubble” where it was nearly impossible for COVID to enter camp after campers arrived for a session. As no one could leave camp, days which staff members had time off were spent around camp, rather than getting to go out to eat or go to a state park. Each cabin also had UV lights put into them, which science has shown to be effective in killing the COVID-19 virus. Thankfully, at a nature summer camp there is plenty of sun at camp, which allowed us to naturally disinfect canoe paddles and life jackets by letting them soak up the UV radiation of the Sun. The wide-open spaces made social distancing rather easy, and we tried to keep camp as normal as we possibly could, and I believe that this was done quite well, as Swift Nature Camp experienced 0 cases of COVID all summer. 

COVID surely changed the way that Swift Nature Camp operated in 2020, but we took it as a challenge we could not back down from, one where the reward was much greater than the risk, and it paid off hugely. By prioritizing safety, we were able to mitigate any damage that could have been done by the virus and were able to make it through the entire summer. While the social distancing guidelines were not well received by many campers, they understood that they all played a pivotal role in the entirety of the summer, as a single case of COVID likely could have shut down the whole camp for the entire summer. The campers wore their masks, they practiced social distancing, and the day that we announced that we would no longer have to wear face masks was often one of the best days of the session. It was so rewarding for all of us to know that we had each played our part to make sure that everyone benefitted, a lesson in teamwork that I think more of the world should learn from. 

With the 2021 season ahead and a year of experience of “COVID Camp” behind us, Swift Nature Camp is ready for the new summer. We instituting new policies like asking counselors to get vaccinated as soon as they can based on the groups which are allowed to receive the vaccine. With testing becoming more widely available, we will be implementing much more testing, to further ensure the safety of our campers and our staff. Face masks and social distancing measures will still be implemented in order to minimize the spreading of the virus. We are hoping that our 2021 summer camp will be just as safe as our sleep- away summer camp in 2020. It seems as if COVID-19 is getting under control and that 2021 will be the last year we have to plan for COVID, so that the Swift Nature Camp community can return to normal and that campers can return back to their summer homes with out concern