New Hampshire’s day camps are allowed to open today, but some won’t be bringing kids back until later in the season.
Rus Wilson, Portsmouth’s recreation director, says that city's camps are starting up on July 6th, the same day its public pool opens.
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“It came upon us real quick,” he says. “The governor let us know what we couldn’t do and what we could do and it’s just a matter of getting staff together and all that stuff. So just organizationally we thought it would be better if we put if off a little while make sure we have all our t’s crossed and our i’s dotted.”
In Swanzey, day camps won’t reopen until next Monday, June 29th to allow the town enough time to train staff and buy adequate supplies of wipes and hand sanitizer.
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Aaron Cherry, the town’s recreation director, says even with reduced camp capacity this year, their summer programs aren’t filling up.
“We have one spot left open for session one, but we have still have about 20 spots left open for session two,” he says. “So I think people are still kind of skeptical with everything, although the restrictions are more loose than what they’ve been.”
Camps in Concord are opening today, but Parks and Recreation Director David Gill says the city has had to forgo some their specialty camp programs this year.
“We used to do a lot of specialty camps—you know, it could be a lacrosse camp, it could be a basketball camp, it could be a soccer camp, theater, dance,” he says. “A lot of our specialty camps we’ve had to cancel due to the COVID-19 and due to a lot of the social distancing rules. It’s really hard to do, you know, a theater camp on a stage when you have a lot of kids together.”
Gill says most of the city’s camps are full, and many have waitlists. Camps in Nashua are currently accepting registrations, with most of their camps opening next week.
