Here’s how to contact them:
ANDREW GAUSE MARTIAL ARTS
rvtkd.com/summer-camps Baroody Camps
baroodycamps.com Barrie Camp
barrie.org/barrie-camp Congressional Camp
congocamp.org INCOURAGE MARTIAL ARTS
incouragemartialarts.com/ summercamp
Kidcreate Studio
kidcreate.com Overtime Athletics
otathletics.com Play to Grow
playtogrowmd.com Sidwell Summer
sidwellsummer.org 20 Washington FAMILY JANUARY 2021
Neighborhood or Home Camps
Kristen Garman of Annandale, Virginia,
typically sends her twin boys to full-day
camp through Fairfax County nearly every
week in the summer. Last year, due to the
pandemic, she scaled it back to six weeks.

The boys, then 8, spent two of those
weeks at a neighborhood camp offered by
Baroody Camps.

Baroody, which canceled all of its regular
in-person camps at three locations in
Alexandria and Arlington, instead offered
both half-day and full-day camps for groups
of five to nine kids at families’ homes and
neighborhood parks. Campers enjoyed art,
science, cooking, building and various sports.

COVID-19 safety measures included daily
temperature checks, mask wearing and using
hand sanitizer.

The Garmans teamed up with three other
families the first week and two families the
second week in a neighbor’s backyard.

“It helped the kids get some fresh air and
exercise with their friends,” Garman says.

“Of course we were worried about the virus,
but we felt the benefits of camp outweighed
the risks for the boys.”
Overtime Athletics, a sports-themed
camp operating at various locations
throughout the country (including Maryland
and Virginia), also offered full-day and half-
day camps at people’s homes.

And Play to Grow in Gaithersburg,
Maryland, shipped the camp experience—
but not the counselors—straight to families’
homes with Camp@Home crates. The crates
contained art supplies and materials, along
with instructions and videos to help campers
complete 10 to 15 activities per week.

Virtual Camps
About 100 children attended one of
Congressional Camp’s virtual summer camps
via Zoom in 2020. The virtual camps focused
on activities such as arcade building, fashion
design, engineering and more.

“Parents who weren’t comfortable sending
their kids to in-person camp, who didn’t
want to commit to a full six weeks, or who
just needed to fill part of the day chose the
virtual option,” says O’Neil.

In addition to its neighborhood camps,
Baroody Camps also offered both half-day
and full-day virtual camps via Zoom. Camp
activities included art, science, cooking,
fitness, building, dance, theater and more.

And Sidwell Friends School, which
has locations in Washington, D.C. and in
Bethesda, Maryland, took their Sidwell
Summer programs for grades K through 8
online. Sidwell offered three-hour camps
with themes like LEGO, robotics and fashion.

Looking Ahead to 2021
As for the upcoming summer, camp directors
say it’s still too early to determine exactly
what they’ll be able to offer. It will all depend
on where we are with the pandemic and what
state and CDC guidelines will be.

“It’s tough to say right now because so
much can change so quickly,” says Hayden of
Barrie Camp. “But right now we’re planning
for a relatively normal summer program with
social distancing in place.”
O’Neil of Congressional Camp says he
believes the camp will continue to run at a
limited capacity, but not quite as limited as
last summer. And Greenbaum of Kidcreate
says she is planning for the same restrictions
as last summer.

“I really hope things are fairly back to
normal next summer,” she says. “But like
everything else, we’ll have to wait and see. n
SKYNESHER / E+
Interested in any of
the summer camps
mentioned in the article?
did not allow for social distancing, such
as horseback riding, music, pizza days and
travel programs.

“It went even better than we expected,”
says Dan Hayden, director of Barrie Camp.

“The kids adapted very quickly to the new
rules and to keeping their masks on.”
Congressional Camp in Falls Church,
Virginia, offered one six-week on-campus
program, Zippy’s Mini Camp, instead of
its usual 11 weeks of summer camp. Rather
than allowing families to pick and choose
weeks as usual, campers had to enroll for all
six weeks.

“We thought that it would be safer to
have the same campers come for the
entire session, rather than have different
kids come in and out,” explains Dan
O’Neil, the camp’s director. “And we
redesigned our camp program so that
the campers could participate in almost
all of the same activities.”
Those changes included moving many
of the indoor activities to outdoor tents and
limiting the capacity to 180 campers rather
than the usual 700 or so each week.

Kidcreate Studio, a children’s art studio
in Alexandria, Virginia, rearranged its setup
so that it could open its three-hour summer
camps in June. The studio provided each
camper with his or her own table and art
supplies instead of having a communal
tables with shared supplies. It also required
every staffer and camper to wear a mask
even before mask-wearing was mandatory
in Virginia. Owner Diane Greenbaum
found that almost all of the parents were
appreciative of these safety measures.

“Ninety-nine percent of them said, ‘Thank
you for doing things the way you’re doing
them,’” Greenbaum recalls.