Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County’s new virtual Summer Camp is now open for all children to help fight off summertime boredom while also offering live mentoring and continued academic support. The new website address is www.bgcathome.org and replaces a temporary website that was created immediately after Club closures due to COVID-19 safeguards. The professionally designed site is much more kid-friendly and easy to navigate. It was created in less than a month to be ready for the start of summer.
Virtual Summer Camp offers some of the most popular programs that are normally enjoyed at Boys & Girls Clubs. Throughout the day Monday-Friday, members can enjoy live activities with their favorite Club staff and friends. Both Club members and non-members can also enjoy ever-changing fun activities that include STEM, arts, music, physical activities and much more. BGC at Home is age-specific so that kindergartners, high school seniors and everyone else in between will find age-appropriate activities. For teens, our traditional career readiness programs will continue uninterrupted. For younger children, a focus on limiting academic slide due to distance learning issues will continue. Every weekday there will be an assortment of live lessons, thought-provoking activities and fun games to be enjoyed by all.
“It is extremely important that we continue to provide service to our Club members and to all children of Palm Beach County while our Clubs remain closed to children. We are looking forward to reopening our Clubs, but it will be at a reduced capacity due to social distancing guidelines because of the pandemic. This means many children who normally attend our Summer Camps will not be able to do so this summer, as a result, we are providing much of our programming online,” said President & CEO Jaene Miranda.
To make the virtual Summer Camp even more exciting, Summer Camp kits will be handed out to children. Included in the virtual activity kits will be athletic equipment and art supplies. Clubs will be releasing more information about distribution plans soon.
Summer Camp is scheduled to open June 15th with reduced capacity for Club members. Instead of offering Summer Camp to 2 thousand children, as usual, this year Palm Beach County Clubs will only be able to host around 600 children. Parents of those who will be able to attend will be notified by June 5. All others are encouraged to take full advantage of the virtual Summer Camp. Club members can enter into the website through a portal that is exclusive to their Club. Members will then enter their names to gain access to all programming. Non-members can still join the virtual Summer Camp through the “future member” portal. Most activities are available to non-members, but live sessions will not.
“Despite the extraordinary circumstances, we want all children to be able to enjoy their summer safely. That means some will be able to attend our traditional camps while others will be able to still have fun and see their friends with our new virtual Summer Camp,” said Miranda.
