LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Gov. Asa Hutchinson will announce next week whether camps can open in Arkansas this summer. Ahead of that decision, many camps are planning for a summer unlike any other — one that could leave their facilities largely empty.
Camp Aldersgate, located in Little Rock, has served children with special needs since 1947.
"They just get to be kids and get to have fun and they get to forget what their diagnosis is or what their challenge might be that day," Camp Aldersgate CEO Sonya Murphy said.
Murphy said that mission will continue this summer, even though camp will look much different amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's much like a graduation and birthdays and weddings -- the event and the specialness is not canceled. It's celebrated a different way," she said. "We decided that there's no other time in our history or recent history that children have needed a camp and fun experience like they all deserve — especially now."
All on-site activities are suspended through at least the end of July. In light of that, Camp Aldersgate will offer a virtual camp program.
"It will be delivered in a safe platform through technology and also every camper will receive two camp-in-a-boxes," Murphy said.
Those will include standard camp activities along with others tailored to each child's interests.
"I think that we all have to be innovative and resilient," Murphy said.
Meanwhile, the Museum of Discovery is waiting on further guidance from the state before making any definitive plans for its summer day camps.
"We're only going to host them if we're given clear approval and clear guidelines on how to do it in a safe manner," program director Thomas Lipham said. "The last thing we want to do is put our guests at risk."
Lipham said hosting camps in their traditional form is unlikely for the museum.
"We are looking very closely at what all of the statistics are saying. We are looking at what other museums and other organizations are doing," he said. "And we're following the guidelines that are being provided down to us to make sure that if we can host camps we're going to do it in a safe way."
The governor will announce on Wednesday, May 20 whether the state's summer camps can open and under what restrictions