The J drew at least 300 children and teenagers per week to its summer camp programs last year and The J Program and Operations Director Tom Wissinger predicts at least as good a turnout this summer.
“That’s the goal,” Wissinger told Community, “to meet and exceed.”
Camp registration began February 6 for The J members and the entire community on February 19.
This year, The J is offering an expanded itinerary that includes units for everyone – especially older kids.
For instance, The J is bringing back its Counselor in Training (CIT) unit for 10th graders. The five-week unit will teach CITs the necessary skills to become camp counselors.
“That’s to get these 10th graders, who are too old really to be a traditional camper and too young to be an employee, the opportunity to see what camp is all about, to still engage in camp- with the idea that, in the future, they’ll be counselors – really great counselors – for our camps or other camps,” said Mary Kate Smith, assistant camp director of programming.
In addition, the TREK unit (grades 4-6) is expanded to include three field trips this summer.
“TREK is going to be more involved in things on campus,” Smith said.
The other units are ELC Summer Camp (ages 2 to pre-K), KEFF Unit (K), and KEFF Unit (grades1-3) and Yong Leaders (grades 7-9)
All the grades reflect the year each child will be entering during the next school year, Smith said.
There also will be 40-45 specialty camps this summer, including variations on cooking, crafts, sports theater, art, magic, video making, fashion and dance.
Several camp specialists have been retained this year in the areas of nature, cultural arts, sports and games.
The J also hopes to retain specialists in dance and archery and to have two Israeli schlichim on hand to teach music and Jewish state culture. But the details for these specialists are still being worked out.
All camp programs will be done on The J campus except for cooking camps, which will be held at the Standard Club.
Contact Smith at 502-238-2774 or at msmith@jewishlouisville.org. To register online, visit jcclouisvillecamp.org.