Community Corner

Summer Camp: Are Parents More Excited Than The Kids?

Some parents go to extreme measures to get their kids signed up for Gaithersburg's summer camp programs.

The middle of February might not be the time when most people are thinking about summer programs for their kids.

But one group of parents in Gaithersburg get riled up year after year.

At 6am on Feb. 1, registration opened for this year's camps, and just minutes--that's right, minutes--later, some of them were full.

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"I don't know if I would call it 'excitement'. It actually makes us all a little nutty," Cathy Kim told Patch in an email.

How nutty?

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One program, the Lakelands Youth Activity Program (YAP), had all 75 slots filled in 14 minutes.

Tim "Smitty" Smith, the city's Youth Serviced Director, said there has always been a high demand for the city's summer programs.

"There've always been people waiting in line," he said. "We used to have open registration over at the Bohrer Park Activity Center and we'd have 300 people in the lobby five or six hours in advance."

But in today's world of digital everything, registration has gone online.

Last year registration opened at the stroke of midnight.

There were parents "lined up" in front of their computer screens clicking at the stroke of 12, but a technical glitch slowed things down and caused Smitty to rethink this year's approach.

"We had some problems last year," he said, and there was no city staff working at midnight to fix the problem.

So this year registration opened at 6am when there would be someone ready to fix any issues.

And the first hectic hours of registration went smoothly this year, with 650 registrants by the end of the first day.

Still, parents devise strategies to make sure they get their kids into the programs they want.

"Login early hoping maybe the system is activated before the actual signup time of 6 AM," Kim wrote. "We continue to refresh our screens until 6 AM when registration finally opens. We do this just so we can be one of the first ones to sign-up and be guaranteed a spot in the session we want."

"We like the camp because it is convenient to our house and inexpensive," said Kristi Swartz, another parent who was up early to register. "The counselors are great and have fun with the kids.  It's not so much that they are over scheduled in the summer but enough that they are having lots of fun with their friends!"

The low price is attractive for cash-strapped parents, but the down economy is still taking it's toll, Smitty said.

"There was a time when more camps filled earlier, but with the economy, people are being a lot more strategic with how they spend their money," he said.

There are a total of about 2,700 slots open for kids to participate in a camp, including camps that run several sessions per summer.

"There's always a core group that's looking to get into some camp," Smitty said. "It's always interesting, that's for sure."

More information on all the available summer camps and registration can be found on the city's website.


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