It’s a question parents face every year: How do you find childcare when school is out for the summer?
For Cathy Renfeldt, the executive director of the Cordova Chamber of Commerce, the answer is a patchwork of summer camps.
“My daughter is elementary aged and yeah, I’ve just filled her summer with camps. She’s got camps on camps on camps,” said Renfeldt. “I’ve only had to send her to daycare like one week this summer. That’s great.”
One of those camps that’s available for school-aged children is the Mavis Island Project, a weekly summer adventure camp that caters to second through sixth graders.
Now in their third year, the Mavis Island Project has been able to offer six weeks of programming this summer, compared to only two weeks of camp in previous years.
Gabrielle Brown, the camp director and founder of the Mavis Island Project, credits the increase in programming to the grant funding and organizations covering student scholarships that the Mavis Island Project received this year.
Brown said when she applies for grant funding, one of the things she explains is that the city used to have a city-run day camp that ran for several weeks throughout the summer – and now it doesn’t.
The loss of the Bidarki Day Camp, a program ran out of the Bidarki Recreation Center, left a huge gap in summer childcare options, Brown said, and it’s part of the reason why she started the Mavis Island Project.
“They [parents] didn’t have to plan out a whole summer,” Brown said of the previous program. “They knew their kid was having fun and being outside every day and yeah – it’s just simple.”
Kristin Carpenter, the executive director of the Prince William Sound Economic Development District, also noted how the loss of the Bidarki summer camp affected parents over the summer.
“They had a school bus and they would take kids out to the sand piles at nine mile,” said Carpenter. “And they would go for hikes and they would do kayaking on the lake and they did all kinds of stuff.”
Carpenter noted that while there are several summer camp options available now, most of them don’t run more than a week or ten days, which can add another challenge.
“Parents have to string a bunch of things together to get it to work,” said Carpenter.
While not a camp, another good option for the summer are the free meals at the elementary school, said Renfeldt, especially for kids who are independent enough to walk or bike over on their own.
There’s a playground where kids can hang out – and enough adults around for supervision – and kids can come for both breakfast and lunch.
“It’s kind of a nice way to give your kids something to do that is kind of a safe space,” said Renfeldt. “And they’re getting fed and they’re off screens.”
Although it may still be challenging for parents to string things together over the summer, Brown thinks that Cordova is closer to having enough options for kids over the summer.
Brown sends out a survey at the end of her camps that asks parents if they think that Cordova has enough summer programming. Sixty-six percent of parents said “no” in 2022, she explained, and in 2023 that number was 63%.
This year, however, she’s seen more parents answer “yes” for the first time.
Although not every parent has filled out her survey yet, so far, Brown said, 58% of parents have said they think there’s enough summer programming in Cordova.
Loreen Pallas, the owner of Children’s Pallas, agreed that there is a lot to do for school-age children this summer.
“So far it’s been real good, and there’s so many camps going on at the present time, you know, for the summer, so it’s working out okay for everyone,” said Pallas.
The increase in summer activities for school-age children has been reflected in her enrollment numbers. Although Children’s Pallas has a waitlist for infant care – a common occurrence year-round, Pallas said, because they can only take five infants – she said she hasn’t had to implement a waitlist for older kids.
“We’ve been able to accommodate everyone that had a request this summer,” said Pallas.
