Liberty Lake Day Camp has taken the initiative of bringing “fun in the sun” online through the magic of social media and technology, teleporting their camp spirit and programming into thousands of living rooms.
“We feel that our role in the lives of families is to figure out how to make lemonade out of lemons, while being a resource of youth development, and helping keep focus on the important things in life — like quality time with family, and the opportunity to learn and explore together,” says Liberty Lake owner/director Andy Pritikin.
Pritikin and longtime director Brandi Carnivale-Anderson of Burlington have put together hours of fun programming as a respite to the those stuck at home with their kids.
Virtual Camp kicked off this past Monday with a full-on “Monday Assembly,” including a military flag raising at the backdrop of their lakeside amphitheater, as traditionally done at Liberty Lake. Burlington native and current East Brunswick Science teacher Regan Gillespie started things off with an improvised version of “The Wake Up Song.”
Gillespie, who started her Liberty Lake career as a 5-year-old camper and now supervises the high-ropes adventure program, filmed herself on her phone and turned it into a TikTok.
Also on the docket this week is photo scavenger hunt, in which children are taking pictures of specific beautiful blooming flowers and posting them into an event page for judging by the camp photographers. They also have a video up of their summertime chef, Sean “Stu” O’Brien of Pemberton, teaching kids how to make the ultimate paper airplane.
While today’s technology enables the live and recorded streaming of these kind of online events, Pritikin is very up front that this is an off-season phenomena.
“During the summer camp season, Liberty Lake is proud to be an outdoors, screen-free environment. And when this current situation thankfully ends, kids and parents are going to want to be outdoors, away from screens like never before,” Pritikin says. “We’re all overdosing on screens right now, which may be what society needs to re-appreciate the virtues of nature, face-to-face communication, and true social connection.”
Pritikin, the past president of the American Camp Association and host of the “Day Camp Podcast,” says he communicates regularly with camp directors from all over North America, and the shared sentiment is that summer camp has become the “beacon of light at the end of the tunnel” for millions of families, with campers, parents and camp staff all remaining optimistic that “fun in the sun” will return in in three months’ time.
Liberty Lake’s free resources and online presence can be found on their Facebook page, Instagram, and on a dedicated Liberty Lake Virtual Camp webpage which includes an online virtual tour of the 60-acre facility, located in Mansfield Township.
(Facebook photo.),
