Summer Camp Receives Green Light in Pleasantville, Lottery Will Determine Slot
It’s official: Pleasantville summer camp will start June 28 and run through Aug. 6.
Parents can choose from two three-week sessions or one six-week session. The first three-week session is scheduled for June 28 through July 16, and the second session is July 19 until Aug. 6.
The camp day will be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Groups, which will range from children entering grades K-6, will be split by age and gender.
Campers will be chosen by a lottery because space is limited due to continued impacts of COVID-19, most notably Department of Health guidelines that stipulate social distancing. Total attendance is being capped at 210 children, down from 300 previously.
Parents are automatically being entered into the lottery when registering their child. Registration began on Monday, Mar. 29 and will continue through Friday, Apr. 9. Lottery drawings will begin on Apr. 12.
“Everyone who registers during that time frame has an equal shot,” said Superintendent of Recreation & Parks Matt Trainor.
Camp slots will be filled based on open groups and compatibility and each child has to be registered separately. All siblings of campers who are chosen from the lottery will automatically be given slots. Registration can be completed online at https://register.communitypass.net/VillageofPleasantville.
The village will award 15 $1,000 scholarships to families showing financial need on the registration form. Children who receive free lunch through the Pleasantville School District are likely eligible for a scholarship.
At the Mar. 22 Village Board meeting, Trustee David Vinjamuri suggested that if his children got into camp and all scholarships have not been awarded, he would volunteer his children’s spots to a family in need.
“If we let villagers know there are people in need perhaps others would voluntarily do that as well,” he said.
One three-week session will cost village residents $480 and school district residents outside the village $548. The full six-week session will run $960 for residents and $1,096 for district residents outside the village.
The camp will follow Department of Health guidelines, including mandatory masks for campers and staff at all times, However, there will be mask breaks throughout the day. There will be no intermingling of campers from different pods during the day and pods will be separated by at least 12 feet. Each pod will contain up to 15 campers.
The camp will operate at Parkway Field, Soldier and Sailors Field and the village pool on Lake Street, with campers rotating between those locations. The pool will be available daily to campers until 12:30 p.m., when the facility opens to the general public.
“The village is nothing but happy to be able to run the camp again,” said Mayor Peter Scherer. “We are trying hard to make camp available to as many people as we can with the three- and six-week sessions. We thought the lottery was a fair way to do it.”
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