Hello Wapsie Community,

At YMCA Camp Wapsie, we’ve always recognized and taken seriously the sacred duty of taking care of your kids. Our programs are designed around providing an environment for young people to grow friendships, social and life skills, while building lifelong memories at camp. With school closures and new protocols being put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), I want to personally update you on camp and some of the steps we are taking to ensure your families health and safety at our camp.

In addition to our longstanding and rigorous safety procedures and staff training protocols, we are implementing new preventative measures and enhancing our current procedures. This includes enhanced health screenings upon arrival at camp with temperature checks and health screening questions. Wapsie is planning enhanced cleaning and sanitization practices; additional options like hand washing/sanitization stations, adjusting activities with enhanced social distancing and minimizing physical contact between individuals.

We are reviewing and updating our policies to help ensure your child’s safety and quality experience with guidelines and recommendations provided by the Center for Disease Control, the Linn County and Iowa Public Health Department, the American Camping Association and medical professionals.

YMCA Camp Wapsie has been closed to the public since mid-March, and is currently required to continue to be closed through April 30th. This means many of our schools, churches and other organizations have not been able to help their participants learn, grow and build relationships with each other and the outdoors through Wapsie programs. Nearly two months of program closure and new practices to help address COVID 19 have had a significant financial impact on camp and the Cedar Rapids Y. While we are working to reschedule many of these retreat and corporate groups in the fall or next year, there are many people who will miss out on participating in the valuable opportunities Wapsie provides this spring.

Wapsie is still planning to run summer camp for the summer of 2020. While things are still evolving we do not feel a decision to cancel or delay the start of summer camp is prudent at this time. We do take health and safety seriously and understand that new information could adjust the start date or parts of our programming. YMCA and Camp Wapsie leadership continue to monitor and learn more about COVID-19 and recommendations from health professionals. We are anxiously waiting for additional updates from government and health officials, including guidelines from the Center for Disease Control specific for camps in the next week or so. This should give us more information to help determine any next steps. Should state and federal requirements force a change in our operation, we will take necessary steps to ensure that the best possible decisions are made. As always, we will be transparent in communicating with you in a timely fashion regarding any updates.

For information on COVID-19 please visit www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

We will continue to communicate with you regularly in the coming weeks with additional updates. In the meantime, we kindly ask for your patience before making any adjustments to your Wapsie summer plans. Thank you for your continued trust in YMCA Camp Wapsie. We remain honored to serve your family and be a part of your summer tradition. Stay safe and be well.

Sincerely in Camping,

Paul Denowski
Executive Director
YMCA Camp Wapsie

May 7th, 2020 Update:

Hello Wapsie Families,

We hope you are all doing well, practicing social distancing and staying healthy. COVID-19 has caused many changes in our everyday lives. With the evolving situation we understand that you may have some concerns. Our Camp and YMCA Staff, have been hard at work learning and preparing for new best practices for camp. The safety and well being of campers is always our focus.

In response to current circumstances, YMCA Camp Wapsie will be delaying the due date and the deduction of payments from your account for this summer to a later date as we continue to watch if health and governmental guidelines will affect our ability to start camp on time.