RKY camp opts to pivot to a family camp experience in 2021

Jeff Green | Jun 16, 2021

It won't be as barren a camp season as last year, at RKY Camp, located on Eagle Lake near Parham, but it won't be a normal RKY season either.

"Provincial green lights and Ministry of Health guidance came after our preparation window had passed for making the kinds of decisions we would have needed to make for the kind of camp season we ran every year until 2019. We knew last month that we would have to pivot, said camp director D’Arcy Munn.”

So, instead of bunks filled with children, poised for a fun, off-grid camp experience, there will be 6 families at RKY at a time, each in their own cabin with their own washroom, but there will be camp staff on hand to make it a real RKY summer for those families, using mostly self-directed programming.

And instead of eating in the brand-new state of the art dining hall, that was only a hole in the ground when the camp was last open for a regular summer, the food will be stereotypical COVID takeout.

The 2021 season has been a work in progress for months.

“We gave campers the opportunity to register, knowing that we were by no means certain what we would be able to offer, and when we decided to pivot to a weekly family cabin rental program, there was a very good response from our families. The summer booked up very quickly. The good news is that we have secured the funding that we need for the staff who will be working this summer. And, we will be able to complete all the upgrades to RKY that we have been working on.

Although RKY suffered financially from revenue shortfalls for two years, and the normal cycle of staff coming on as campers become councillors every year, has been broken, the future looks bright for the 80 year-old camp.

The timing of the COVID disruption has been fortuitous in some ways, because RKY has been able to focus entirely on major infrastructure upgrades that were already underway in 2019.

The cornerstone project among those upgrades, was the replacement of the former dining hall with a $2 million, fully accessible new Homestead Dining Hall. That project was supported by a major fundraising campaign, with the largest donor, long time camp supporter, centenarian Brit Smith, of Homestead Holdings.

“With everything that has happened to the construction industry in the last 15 months, from labour shortages to building supplies tripling in price, the $2 million cost of the hall is looking more and more like a bargain,” said Munn.

Now, the old dining hall is being completely renovated and turned into an outdoor education centre. Jim and Maryln Stewart are long time supporters of RKY, who have had several generations of children in their family attend the camp. Since 1978, they have also sponsored two camp spots each summer for families who might not be able to afford to send their children to camp, helping over 90 children over 30 plus years. They have made a major commitment to sponsor the $200,000 renovation project which will create the Jim and Maryln Stewart Outdoor Centre. It will be completed this summer.

The waterfront is being upgraded as well, docks and other features are being replaced, with financial support from the Rotary Kingston Centennial grant.

“We have taken the time, while we were closed, to do a lot of things that would have been difficult to do otherwise, and even though COVID made it hard to build at times, because of problems getting materials and some of restrictions, we will be welcoming back our campers to a much-improved RKY Camp facility in 2022, which is pretty exciting.”

All of the upgrades will make RKY a more attractive location to hold events such as weddings, meetings and retreats, enhancing its status as a year-round centre that plays a key role in the local economy in Central Frontenac.

The RKY Camp was founded as a not-for-profit camp in 1929 by the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs in Kingston as well as the YMCA (hence the name RKY). It is operated by a board and maintains a strong affiliation with its founding organisations, to this day.

RKY is not alone among not-for-profit camps that have not been able to offer a regular summer program in 2021.

"Some camps have the resources to operate, with reduced numbers of campers, under the Public Health COVID protocol. Every camp has its own circumstances and finances. For us this was the only way to go. Hopefully in the fall and winter things will change. Everyone is looking forward to that,” said Munn.