Foundation for Jewish Camp announces four new specialty camps

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Foundation for Jewish Camp announced four new camps to be included in its specialty camp incubator designed to engage Jewish campers.

The Specialty Camp Incubator II, which began accepting applications in March, is part of an $8.6 million grant jointly funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation and Avi Chai.

The new camps announced Thursday are intended to engage the 90 percent of Jewish youth in grades 6-12 who, according to the Cohen Center at Brandeis University, do not report memorable summer overnight camp experiences. They are designed to reach demographic and geographic populations underserved in Jewish camping.

Staffs for the new camps are scheduled to be trained with a target launch of summer 2014.

The new camps are Camp Inc., a business and entrepreneurial camp based in Boulder, Colo.; Camp Zeke, an East Coast-based health and wellness camp; JCC Maccabi Sports Camp in the San Francisco Bay area; and the URJ Six Points Science Academy science and technology camp in the Boston area.

They join the five specialty camps created in 2010 as part of a separate grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation.

Al Levitt, president of the Jim Joseph Foundation, said that 1,255 young Jews participated last summer in the first specialty camps.

“The camps exceeded their enrollment benchmarks and provide a new path to Jewish camp for many children,” he said. “We have the utmost confidence that these four new camps will do the same.”