The town of Barrington recently released an executive order restricting social distancing guidelines to groups of five until June 12. 

How does this impact Camp Cedarwood?  A functioning camp for us is a minimum of 50 people. Since June 12 was within 10 days of our start date for camp it didn’t seem practical that the town would increase gatherings to 50 in 10 days. Sadly, Camp will not take place this summer. We know you share our sadness about this.

Were there any other factors in your decision? The need to minimize COVID-19 exposure and sanitize Cedar Hall camp spaces had a part, too. We were exploring ways to accomplish this. In a social setting like a camp, it would be difficult to do without a lifting of the government’s restrictions on social distancing and gatherings.

Why decide in May about Camp? We made the decision now to be responsible towards parents and staff, allowing them an opportunity to look for other options for the summer. We released that news to those involved on May 13.

Will Camp return next year? We are planning for it. We had already lined up excellent staff for this year, selected the themes, redesigned many of the aspects of camp and done much of the back office work. This gives us a solid foundation for the future.

If you’d like further information on the decision making process, contact Dan Klassen at pastor_dan@bbcri.org.