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The Jewish Home | JULY 14, 2022
THIs Week, TJH speaks WITH…
Camp Funshine
By SuSan Schwamm
Two months of amazing summer fun! For the last few weeks, our children have been basking in the sun, swimming, singing, and soaking up the fun every day. How are they spending their time away from their desks? In this series, we speak with camp directors and head counselors to learn more about our community’s amazing, spectacular, incredible, marvelous, unbelievable (you get the point!) camps.
GoinG to camp when you’re younG is nonstop fun if you’re in camp funshine. Located in north woodmere, camp funshine provides miLes of smiLes for around 100 chiLdren in our community. whether it’s sinGinG or dancinG to the beat, these younGsters can’t stop GiGGLinG the whoLe summer throuGh. this week we spoke with mrs. eLkie foGeL, camp funshine’s director, to Learn more about aLL the fun.
Mrs. Fogel, we hear such wonderful things about Camp Funshine. Tell us more about the camp. We are an adorable camp for 3-5 yearolds, based out of Ohr Torah in North Woodmere. We attract campers from North Woodmere and across the Five Towns! Everyone loves Camp Funshine for its warmth and non-stop activities, perfect for preschool age children. Now, we even have a year-round school called Little Friends Gan of North Woodmere. A lot of our school-year students are now our campers. How many campers are enjoying Camp Funshine currently? Every summer we have around 100 campers. Since our spots are
so limited, we fill up right away each year. The beauty of that number of campers is that we are able to provide big camp perks, while at the same time give attention and love to each and every camper! So some of these kids are students there during the year. How do you make them feel at home and excited to come to camp every day? How do you differentiate it for them? I love that, because camp provides an opportunity to do different things with them than the school year. The kids enjoy a whole new dimension as their building suddenly transforms into a camp, and there are water slides and trips and so
much more. They also enjoy the consistency of knowing the building and the layout. It’s fun and familiar at the same time. You’re dealing with little ones. Do you have nap time or time during the day for a little “downtime”? Some of our youngest bunks do real naptime, while other bunks just have a story-time break to relax and provide a midday rest. Sandwiched around that “rest time” is nonstop action and fun! Tell us about your amazing staff. They are the best! Everyone applying to work at Camp Funshine did so because they want to work with young children and make a difference in each child’s
