Dear Parents,
This information is for parents who have enrolled at least one child or junior counselor in Outpost for Summer 2020.
We are terribly disappointed that we have to close for this upcoming summer, most of all, in disappointing your family and especially your campers. We wanted so badly to run camp this summer of all summers, because we know in our hearts how much camp could help children “get back to normal” after all these isolated and challenging weeks. It was difficult to tell our family, and we’re sorry we have to tell yours.
Because we are not an “essential business” and due to the circumstances, our office is now closed and our staff have been laid off or furloughed. This was extremely difficult, as our staff are like family to us. Some of them have been with us for ten to fifteen years.
By Friday, April 10 you will receive a detailed email from us regarding our closure and with information about refunds. Should you wish to contact us, you are welcome to leave a voice mail at (858) 842-4900, and/or email us at office@outpostsummercamps.com. We will make every effort to return calls and email back as promptly as possible, however, we ask for patience while we work though each family’s enrollment cancellation.
We know you chose Outpost for a reason. Most of you are returning families who value our program, our philosophy, and our commitment to safety and quality. Some of you are new families who were excited about being part of our camp family. We will miss ALL of you this summer.
As parents ourselves and with our younger kids in camp and our older kids serving on staff, we are heartbroken for the loss of our most important summer tradition this year. Especially this year.
We made a page for to you share with your camper here. It has a form where your camper can share a story with us, and then we’ll mail something from our camp stash to your house!
If your camper or junior counselor is having an especially hard time with this, they will not be alone. At any point, please reach out to us and let us know. Several of our summer staff have volunteered to help out by sending videos to say hi or making phone calls to connect with our campers, catch up, share memories and get excited about next year.
We plan on operating in 2021. We will be counting on our long-time families to be ready to register their children next summer, and to help share with new families about our program.
Finally, from our family to yours in these strange times (and yes, we’re at home with five kids, and yes, that’s as crazy as it sounds), we hope you are safe, healthy and finding new ways to connect and make it through with the rest of us.
Sincerely,
Stuart and Kelly Jones