Category: Base

Making Camp Totally Affordable

Posted on April 14, 2021

Making Camp Affordable for Every Family

At Camp Zeke, we are committed to making sure the camp experience is totally affordable for every family. We want to make it a quick, easy, and confidential process to apply for financial aid. Please see below for details about how the process works. 
 
First, you register for camp at campzeke.org/dates-rates. We take a deposit of $50 for scholarship applicants, and that deposit is totally refundable if our scholarship offer doesn’t work for you.
 
Second, we will ask you to apply for One Happy Camper, which is a Foundation for Jewish Camp program that takes $1,000 off the price of camp. That funding will be in addition to your scholarship. 
 
Third, we will send you our PDF scholarship application, which takes about 10 minutes to complete. Once you send us back the scholarship application, we work on putting a fee reduction in place to ensure camp is totally affordable. 
 
If we cannot come back with a reduced price that works for you, then you can withdraw the camp application with no questions asked (and a full refund of the deposit). However, we always meet our families’ financial needs and will ensure that the scholarship offer works for your family. 
 
To ask a confidential question about our scholarship process, please contact our associate director, Elliot, at 212-913-9783 or elliot@campzeke.org.

Letter for Florida Families

Posted on April 12, 2021

April 2021
 
Dear Florida Families:
 
I hope you are all doing well! As you prepare for camp and start to look into flight options, we wanted to offer a new service: Camp Zeke has established a relationship with a travel agency that will help put all of our Florida families on the same flight. That way, your camper can fly to and from camp with the other campers from Florida who are traveling on the same day.
 
If you are interested in details, please contact Nadia at mytravel@pacbell.net. The name of the travel agency is Family Travel Concierge. Please note that this service is completely optional. 
 
You are also welcome to book your own flight if you prefer. If you choose to book on your own, please book a flight that arrives at Newark International Airport around 12:00 pm on opening day. Our staff will be waiting to welcome your camper inside the airport. Please plan to fly out on the last day of the session around 3:00 pm from Newark International Airport.
 
Whichever option you choose, please send me your flight details so I can coordinate the airport pickup on opening day. If you have any questions, please be in touch!
 
Best,
Rachel
 

Rachel Pineles
Director of New Families &
Director of Operations, Camp Zeke
Summer: Lakewood, PA
Winter: New York, NY
212-913-9783
rachel@campzeke.org

2021 Parent Handbook and Policy Updates

Posted on March 31, 2021


We are pleased to share our 2021 Parent Handbook! This has all the information you need to prepare for camp, so please please give it a close read. The camp forms listed on page 4 of the handbook are now live on CampInTouch. They are due by May 20th. For quick reference, please see below for a few policy updates and reminders: 

COVID Safety Planning
As a reminder, please visit this webpage for our COVID safety plan. We’re working with a company that will mail you an at-home COVID test before camp. No need to go anywhere to take it! We will send more information about this as we get closer to opening day.

Transportation
Due to COVID, we are unable to have campers from multiple bunks mix together on buses to camp. That means campers will need to be driven to camp this summer. Please see here for this summer’s pick-up and drop-off schedule.

For campers who fly to camp, please contact Rachel (rachel@campzeke.org). If you will be flying from Florida, please click here for some additional information.

Phone Calls 
While calls home are motivated by the best of intentions, we have found that hearing a parent’s voice often takes kids out of camp’s happy, self-contained community and leads to homesickness that wouldn’t otherwise occur. Having seen this year after year, we are no longer scheduling calls home. In exceptional circumstances, we can still facilitate phone calls by parent request. 

Screens 
As a reminder, all devices with screens are strictly prohibited, including phones, tablets, kindles, iPods, and handheld game systems. We appreciate your partnership in helping us keep these devices out of camp.

Cameras 
For privacy reasons and to avoid any photography in the bunks, cameras should also stay home. Our photographer will post pictures all summer on CampInTouch and campers will have full access to them after camp. 
 
Packages 
The camp community is about friendships and bonding rather than gifts and physical possessions. We have found that when a camper receives a package of gifts, other campers feel left out and it distracts from the cabin community. For this reason, no packages should be sent to camp. Of course, if your camper needs an essential item, our office will be glad to coordinate with you to ensure they receive it.  

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We can’t wait to have your campers join us again in 2021, and we look forward to another wonderful summer together. Please read the Parent Handbook closely. It explain everything you need as you get ready for camp. Of course, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions as you prepare for the experience.