Ocean Beach Youth Group Announcement 6/29/2020

To our OBYG families,

With the traditional opening of camp less than a week away, and a recent scare at a local restaurant showing us just how vulnerable our community can be, we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we cannot find a responsible way forward in which to operate camp this summer.  

Since the COVID-19 crisis began, all of us here at OBYG have been working tirelessly to design a safe summer camp program for your children.  As the weeks went on and the trajectory of this virus became less clear, we shifted gears to create a recreation program where our campers could enjoy sports, arts and bay activities outdoors and remain socially distant. 

However, the variables are just too many; we are a transient community with the majority traveling here by ferry. We do not yet know enough about the uptick in virus cases and the financial, legal and health risks are simply too great. 

We want you to know that we have seriously considered every option and looked at this issue from every angle. We have spoken to island doctors, off-island doctors, insurance agents and underwriters, public health officials, other Long Island camps, both those who have closed and those that have decided to open. We had discussions with both POW and Saltaire who operate their camps as village recreation programs and who have both recently decided to open on a limited scale.'

Opening OBYG requires significant spending. In this pandemic environment, we have little confidence anyone can accurately predict camp enrollment and revenue. That could be disastrous. OBYG and this Board are also 100% committed to giving jobs to every single local teenager and twenty something. That would have been impossible this year. We predicted we would need less than half our staff. Which local kids and parents should we say no to?  

We also approached the Village about local testing and becoming a village recreation program during this emergency, more akin to the other FI camps. Clearly our Mayor and Trustees are confronting new burdens and scary issues that as a summer transient community, no one could have imagined.  We are all truly in this together. Operating as a village rec program and giving all of our revenues to the Village would have allowed us to side-step the significant financial risks and the legal exposure we face this year while operating in our traditional structure. Local testing would have been the biggest piece of allaying health concerns for campers, counselors, parents and multi-generational families. Our thought was that the Village most likely already had the expensive insurance required to operate through the pandemic. 

The Village was very sympathetic, and did offer significant help, but ultimately was unable to focus on the many, many granular details to take on OBYG as a rec program in such a compressed time period.  We understand we are just one spoke in the Ocean Beach wheel and we appreciate their efforts. We especially want to thank Dawn Hargraves and Brian Power for their time and accessibility. 

Needless to say, this has been a heart-wrenching decision for us and one which we did not come to lightly.

However, our commitment to the families of Ocean Beach is unwavering and we will continue to monitor the metrics. We have not ruled out the chance to reverse this decision as Suffolk County moves into Phase 4. We are also working on a way to share resources with our families as we have such talented and committed staff still available to provide activities and supervision for your children.

For families who have already registered for camp and would consider rolling over tuition to help us meet our annual costs will receive a 10% discount for next year's tuition. To request a refund, please email oceanbeachyouthgroup@yahoo.com.

Please watch for additional information in the very near future, and please stay safe and well.

Sincerely,

Ralph Scordino and the OBYG Board of Directors