By Leyna Krow, Assistant Editor, JTNews
There are few points on which all Jewish educators, regardless of denomination, seem to agree. But one thing that gets a nod from nearly everybody — be they Orthodox, Reform, or Secular Humanist — is the value of summer camp.
“Statistics show that Jewish camp is the key to Jewish continuity,” said Kim Greenhall, director of community services for the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. “Kids who go to camp are more likely to be involved Jewishly, give their time Jewishly, and grow up to raise Jewish children themselves.”
But like Jewish day schools and Hebrew schools, Jewish camping programs are rarely free. In fact, many charge several thousand dollars per session. And with many families still reeling from the effects of the recession, those fees are enough to keep kids who would otherwise go to camp at home for the summer. That’s why a number of organizations, including the Federation, the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Jewish Family Service, and various local synagogues offer camp scholarships, or “camperships,” to help ease the financial burden and make sure kids who want to spend the summer in a Jewish setting have the opportunity to do so.
The Foundation for Jewish Camp provides a variety of camperships to Jewish kids around the country. Here in Washington State, families are eligible for grants through the foundation’s JWest program, which provides $1,800 to first-year campers in middle school who do not attend a Jewish day school or yeshiva. Additional grants are available for JWest recipients who return to camp for a second summer.
JWest does not take applicants’ financial situations into account. Every camper to meet the JWest criteria receives a grant. So far this year, JWest has given out 798 grants to first-time campers and 329 grants to continuing campers, 95 of whom live in Washington State. JWest grants can be used at any of 20 Jewish camps in the Western United States. JWest is still accepting applications for the upcoming summer.
Michele Yanow, program ambassador for JWest, said the grants are primarily a means of convincing families who might not otherwise be involved in Jewish life to consider Jewish camp when shopping for summer activities for their kids.
“That’s why it’s not a need-based thing,” she said. “People who are trying to decide what camp to send their kids to find out they can get some money for Jewish camp might decide to try it when they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Since the JWest program began in 2008, more than $2.6 million has been given out in grants.
But does the JWest program really help bring get otherwise unaffiliated kids interested in Judaism?
“I’ve heard from a number of people who say they weren’t doing Jewish stuff before, but now they are because their kid got excited about it at camp,” Yanow said. “One mother in Alaska told me her son came home and said ‘I want tot be a rabbi.’ That’s the extreme, but it does happen.”
Another major provider of camperships locally is the Jewish Federation’s Jewish Education Center. The JEC partners with a variety of local camps and synagogues as well as the Samis Foundation, Jewish Family Service and the Foundation for Jewish Camp to provide camperships.
With the exception of the Samis Foundation, families can also apply to each of these organizations independently, and many do. The JEC application simply provides a one-stop-shop for campership seekers, with JEC staff doing the legwork for families by seeking out a variety of available campership options and clustering them together to provide each family with as much funding as possible.
This year, the JEC received requests from 267 families seeking assistance to pay for camp, up from 163 requests in 2009. More requests have been coming in each week.
“I’m assuming this is all reflective of a down economy,” the Federation’s Greenhall said. “Jewish families are hurting just like everyone else.”
Greenhall added that almost every family who submitted an application received some amount of funding.
“There were a handful of people who applied saying, ‘We don’t really need help, but we heard you were giving out money,’” Greenhall explained. “That’s not really the case and so those kinds of applications we do turn down.”
But every family whose application showed a legitimate need received a campership. The amount of money given varies from family to family depending on which camp the child is attending, and, of course, the family’s financial situation.
In total, an initial $91,277 was allocated in April to campership recipients. Since then, another $14,006 has been raised to cover additional requests.
According to Greenhall, this year’s JEC campership applications detail a wide range of stories from families who need extra help — sometimes a lot of extra help — to send their kids to camp, including credit card debt, family illness resulting in hefty medical bills, or one or both parents out of work.
“We heard a lot of stories this year that were just heartbreaking,” she said.
The mother of one camper, who asked that she remain anonymous, has been self-employed for several years and saw her business collapse when the economy spiraled downward. Last summer, her daughter went to Jewish camp with friends from religious school for the first time, and fell in love with the experience.
“She loved it, and the independence, and the self-sufficiency,” the mother told JTNews. “All of that is really important.”
Without help, it’s not an experience her daughter would get to repeat this summer, but because of the JEC program, she will receive camperships covering almost 100 percent of her camp tuition for this year.
“I’m grateful that we’re given the opportunity for that assistance to be able to send her,” the mother said, “extremely grateful for that assistance.”