OTTAWA -- The YMCA has provided children’s summer camps for more than 100 years, but some camps in eastern Ontarioo remain closed to slow the spread on covid-19, prompting a different approach to this summer’s edition.

The latest addition to the YMCA At Home is YCamp, and it’s free.

“It was colleagues from across Canada that got together to launch this for free program for families to access during the summer with some fresh content to keep their kids busy,” said Rob Adams, CEO of YMCA of Eastern Ontario.

In a typical year, about 300 to 350 kids between the ages of four and 16 would attend the conventional summer camps per week in Brockville, Kingston and Brown’s Bay.

“With the recent announcements of the restrictions on a traditional camp, we just knew it wouldn’t be safe enough to run a traditional camp with those numbers,” Adams said.

“It’s been a challenging time for everybody, so we’ve launched a lot of online content to give families and kids activities to do during the pandemic,” he added. “I think the virtual camp is going to be really good. People are going to enjoy the free content and we’ve had a lot of uptake in our virtual programming already but now it’s time for something fresh.”

Brian Shelley is the vice president of the Simcoe/Muskoka YMCA and the lead on YCamp.

He says although some traditional camp experiences might be left out, new and innovative ways to connect kids virtually have been added.

“Obviously its difficult to teach canoeing or kayaking virtually, but we’re looking at what other elements of the camp experience you can do virtually,” Shelley said.

“Our campers will experience a virtual instruction session and then have an opportunity to do an assignment, or a project on their own, take a picture of it, and send it in to our YCamp online platform at which our councillors will review the work they did, and give them some feedback. We want to be a two-way platform, not just one-way,” he said.

Some of the courses will include arts and crafts, wilderness experiences, environment education, and leadership development.

“Like everything, we had to pivot and act quickly,” Shelley said. “So it’s been getting YMCAs across the country to commit to having their camp leaders film high-quality video instruction on how to deliver camp programs and to build an engaging two-way communication platform.”

“It’s probably 15 organizations across the country creating the content, which can be dispersed by every YMCA across the country. We probably have a core staff of 15 to 20 creating the Y experience.” he added.

And since the cost is free, Shelley hopes more kids might be able to benefit from YCamp.

“We hope this virtual platform will actually help us to engage more children and maybe there is kids who would have otherwise not have been exposed to the YMCA camp experience that we’ll be able to work with this summer.”

Adams also noted that the YMCA serves more than two million Canadiansper year, and if they can help out virtually, it’s better than not helping at all.

“People are recognizing how important the Y is once it’s kind of taken away from them. I encourage everybody to take advantage of the free program that we are doing. You know, it’s not our ideal, but it’s the best we can do and I think it’s very important that the relationship stays between the community and the YMCA,” Adams said.

Shelley agrees, saying out of difficult times comes some amazing innovation and collaboration.

“Our ability as a national organization to reorganize and work together collaboratively to do big things like this, it’s actually pretty exciting and pretty cool.” he said.

“While we’re disappointed that the YMCA summer camp experience looks different this year, we’re still thrilled that we’re able to provide something virtually, and we’re only able to do that as a national organization,” Shelley added.

The virtual camp starts July 6 and runs through Aug. 28, with five new programs being released every week.

The YCamp program will be accessible online starting July 6 here.