BLOOMBERG • April 25, 2020
Summer camps, which began in the 1870s, were created to get children out of the city and allow them to connect with nature and engage in outdoor activities. The CDC issued new guidelines early this month, suggesting coronavirus screening protocols and daily evaluation of children and staff for symptoms and exposure to COVID-19. But it left the final call as to whether camps could proceed up to each state. Jeff Konigsberg says he tried to find a way to stay open this summer. His popular camps, Camp Takajo, which houses 400 boys, and Tripp Lake, which houses 300 girls, are about an hour north of Portland. “Since the pandemic hit, I spent every waking moment trying to find a pathway,” he says. “But in the end, we simply don’t know, and that was the determining factor: the fear of looking one parent in the eye and saying his child was not well under my watch.”