Resort offering inexpensive fall youth programs for 3 hours afternoons
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – With the Ocean City School District going to a hybrid schedule that has students in schools only two days a week, the city Community Services Department is going to offer after-school fall youth camps and clinics at a low price.
The idea, Community Services Director Daniel Kelchner told City Council Thursday evening, is to give children a physical outlet while giving parents a few extra hours when they don’t have to watch their children.
Kelchner said the city wasn’t looking to provide child care, per se, but the program would accomplish a few things at once. The camps and clinics would provide a physical outlet and supplement their socialization as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to limit children’s interactions with each other and their time in school.
The outlet is especially fitting for intermediate school students because their fall sports programs have been eliminated because of the coronavirus.
Kelchner said the programs would run three hours a day in the afternoon, five days a week, at different locations throughout the city, allowing parents their own outlet when they could get other things accomplished when not having to watch their children.
The city is keeping the pricing as low as possible – they are considering $25 a week for the camps – to ensure that families the most in need would be able to take advantage of them. There also would be scholarships for families who could not afford the price.
The sports camps would include cross country, field hockey, basketball and soccer and extended hours at the city’s skateboard park.
Kelchner said when the pandemic restrictions were eased during the summer to allow outdoor camps, the city had no issues with COVID-19 by following state and county health department guidelines, and guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on social distancing, taking temperatures and doing health screenings and using masks. Those same protocols will be in place for the fall sports programs.
He said the camps would continue for a seven-week period through the end of October, until daylight saving time ends, making it impossible to have the camps outdoors in the sunlight.
“I think it is an incredible approach for us,” he said, being able to provide an outlet for youths and families.
There will be limited capacity due to social distancing, he added, but he hoped “demand would be neck and neck with what we can supply.” The programs are only for Ocean City residents.
Mayor Jay Gillian said the Community Services Department has “always been about the community.” With all of the city’s special events canceled during the spring, summer and now through at least October, he said he told Kelchner “the families are so important right now.”
“We’re worried so much about getting sick,” he said, but the stresses that come with the pandemic including suicide and child abuse have to be addressed. That is why the city wants to offer programs to help families and children.
“It’s important that kids can be around other kids if we can do it safely,” Gillian said, noting the $25 cost was not fixed.
Ocean City lucky
The mayor said he gets regional health updates every Wednesday when he confers with medical personnel from Shore Medical Center in Somers Point. He noted that statistics are down on COVID-19 infections and deaths, something confirmed by health department officials in Cape May and Atlantic counties.
“Even with all the panic about people on the boardwalk and downtown, people are really doing that self-responsibility thing which is important,” he said. “Ocean City has been pretty lucky with everything that’s been going on. I hope after the election it all goes away, but we’ll see how that works out.”
He said the state’s mask mandate is important because people have to think of others – masks have been shown to limit the spread of COVID-19. He said people have to keep doing the common-sense things such as wearing masks and washing their hands.
Fitness Center, ballots, Sept. 11 ceremony
Gov. Phil Murphy announced last week that gyms would be allowed to reopen Sept. 1, and that will include the Fitness Center in the Ocean City Community Center. The mayor said the center would comply with the 25 percent capacity limit and that gym members can call in to reserve time slots. They will have to wear masks.
He did take issue with the fact the state is providing mail-in ballots to all voters, saying he believed citizens should still be allowed to vote at the polls.
He noted beach replenishment was to be finished by Tuesday, Sept. 1, with all the equipment gone before Labor Day weekend, which marks the end of the summer season. Work is still to be done on the dune crossovers.
The city will have its annual Sept. 11 ceremony in front of the Ocean City Fire Department headquarters at Sixth Street and Asbury Avenue.
Work also will resume after Labor Day on the Cape May County Municipal Utilities Authority project on piping on Bay Avenue. After citizen complaints about the state of the avenue after earlier work on the project this spring, Gillian noted “we don’t let them leave until Bay Avenue is back to the way it should be.”
There will be a paper-shredding event 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, for city residents at the Shelter Road Recycling Center. It usually is held to coincide with the Fall Block Party, but the Block Party was canceled this year.