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Update on Summer Camps During COVID-19

Dear Elm Street Students and Parents, 

As we enter our 9th week of shutdown of our facilities, we understand the feelings that come with uncertainty. We have been in regular conversations with other Georgia arts venues, several other summer camps, medical professionals, and our own local health workers to discern the best options for moving forward in our summer camp efforts. As information from the state and federal health officials is becoming clear for summer camps across the nation we remain resolute on one clear principle: Camp will open with policies in place that ensure the safety of our campers, our guests, our staff, and all of their families. These policies will be guided by standards set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and best practice advice available from the American Camp Association.

As we look at plans that have been crafted by officials, we believe that it will be unlikely that we will be able to safely re-open our site, gather our staff, and make preparations in time for our original intended summer camp start date of June 8th. Considering this, we have decided to cancel weeks one and two of summer camp sessions, June 8th – 19th.

What does this mean for your family? Registration for the remainder of the summer is open and active. You can see which weeks are available and register for Junior Camp here and Middle Camp here

We currently have many campers registered for a week of summer camp. We are hoping for the remaining weeks of summer to continue, here is information you need to know:

  • If you are currently registered for weeks one or two (June 8th – 19th) of camp, our staff will contact you via email or phone with information about moving your camping session.
  • If you are registered for weeks three through six (June 21 – July 24), there is no need to make any changes at this time.
  • Our refund policy will change if your camper or someone in their household shows symptoms of contagious sickness. 
  • Scholarships are available and the deadline for applications have been extended to June 1st.
  • We will consider adding additional weeks to our summer program if we see there is an opportunity to serve more campers.
  • Camp sizes will adjust to a lower number of campers participating at one time. This also means that we will provide different opportunities to those ages in the Senior Camp and will not be holding our regular Senior Camp. If you have questions about this, please reach out to info@elmstreetarts.org
  • We are currently no longer accepting registrations for Senior Camp and will be reaching out to everyone registered for Senior Camp this week to provide more information on those specific opportunities available to them!
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Additionally, we plan on sending another email out to parents (and posting on our blog) outlining some of the safety/cleaning protocols we will have in place. You can expect this notice by the end of the week! 

The summer camp program is the oldest program at Elm Street Cultural Arts Village, and has served campers and their families as a flagship for arts education in Cherokee County for over 18 years. Our staff is already working diligently to make changes to our program that will bolster our existing health screening, and eliminate large group gatherings of campers and staff. 

We say this to make it clear, summer camp will look different for us this year. With this being said, we will certainly develop and implement some new and unique experiences for our campers that will be life-changing memory makers. 

We will be prepared to outline these changes once we receive clear guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Camp Association. We continue to honor the trust that families place in us as we adapt and move forward together.

Our staff is working and available to answer any registration or program-related questions. The best way to contact us is by emailing info@elmstreetarts.org

Thank you for your continued support of Elm Street Cultural Arts Village during this unprecedented time.

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we rely on a combination of education registrations and donations to be able to provide a wide variety of arts programming to our community and ask that you consider a tax-deductible donation to allow our programming continue.

We will continue to provide updates on how the outbreak impacts the rest of our programming and appreciate your patronage as well as understanding.

Originally published May 13th, 2020.

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