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Camp Colley Earns AZ Association of Environmental Education Award of Excellence

November 16, 2020 Camp Colley Foundation has been awarded the Arizona Association for Environmental Education’s (AAEE) “Outstanding Environmental Education Program” award! AAEE states: “candidates eligible for this award are programs within organizations who have gone “above and beyond” in their environmental education activities primarily within the State of Arizona. Candidates have completed their work to an outstanding degree that has significantly exceeded expectations.” Camp Colley Foundation tailored its summer camp curriculum to offer 10 virtual EE sessions distributed to thousands of Phoenix children and families registered in programs with the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department. Each session included an experiential activity or project to help activate kids minds and bodies to help overcome summer learning loss amidst pandemic lockdowns. In September Camp Colley Foundation launched its first ever year-round EE program for Phoenix children on monthly live online sessions. Originally scheduled to launch in-person at four Phoenix Community centers located in higher needs communities, we made the pivot to online sessions given the current and anticipated fall COVID-19 uncertainties. We are proud that Camp Colley Foundation’s flexibility and determination to deliver quality EE programs for our campers’ learning and growth. Thank you AAEE for awarding Camp Colley Foundation with the 2020 Outstanding Environmental Education Program...

Camp Colley Foundation Is Awarded Long-Term Camp Operations Contract With City of Phoenix

September 24, 2020 After 15 years Camp Colley Foundation is now proudly the program operator of Camp Colley! For those who may not know our organization’s history, let us briefly explain … Since its inception in 2005, the nonprofit Camp Colley Foundation has focused on funding camper scholarships and investing in facilities at Camp Colley, a City of Phoenix-owned camp for underserved youths nestled in the beautiful Coconino National Forest north of Payson. In fall 2019 the City awarded the Foundation a contract to operate camp for one season before beginning the search for a long-term operator. With this new responsibility, our Foundation designed and prepared to implement a program plan that would allow more Phoenix kids to learn and grow at Camp Colley during an all-new, expanded 5-day 4-night wilderness experience. Staff were hired and their week-long training was organized, activity plans were written, transportation was secured, and then… COVID-19 struck. We were forced to shelve our plans and pivot to virtual environmental education programming as an alternative to reach kids while keeping them safe from the virus. The extensive work our Foundation completed to prepare the 2020 season-that-was-not-to-be helped clarify our ability to operate Camp Colley. We gathered our plans, budgets and forecasts and synthesized this information into a proposal submitted to the City of Phoenix in August to become Camp Colley’s long-term operator. And with great excitement and gratitude, Camp Colley Foundation has been selected to operate camp for a minimum of five years beginning in spring 2021. Strengthening our partnership with the City of Phoenix to fully fund and operate Camp Colley is a natural...

What We Are Doing To Connect With Phoenix Children During COVID-19

Last year Camp Colley Foundation worked diligently to deepen our impact for Phoenix children’s learning and growth at camp. We were prepared to host 480 underserved Phoenix campers in our 2020 season (up from the average of 300 in years past) through an extended 5-day, 4-night camp experience. Unfortunately Camp Colley, like all other youth-serving programs, were adversely impacted by COVID-19. Due to the nature of our work we decided in early May that we could not safely operate a sleep-away camp for children while maintaining CDC guidelines on virus mitigation. To activate the brains and bodies of underserved Phoenix children through the summer months we created virtual programs focused on environmental education and outdoor exploration. Activities encourage children and their parents/caregivers to participate together to learn about our local environment while spending time learning outdoors. Topics ranging from ecology, natural habitats, native Arizona animal and plant species, waste reduction, recycling projects and more are offered through experiential written lessons in English/Spanish accompanied by engaging video instruction. The program was disseminated through the City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department to over 2,500 households who typically participate in reduced-cost summer programs in Phoenix and at Camp Colley. We recognize that this experience is different than attending Camp Colley. We believe that we have an important role in slowing the spread of COVID-19; bringing 80 children and 27 adult staff to camp for 9 consecutive weeks would have been an irresponsible decision. This virtual program is the next-best thing to maintain safety, stimulate learning, and get kids excited about Camp Colley 2021. Like so many, our organization is in a...

Update: Camp Colley 2020 Season Shelved

Dear Camp Colley Foundation Supporters, Partners & Friends: We had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But sadly and with much regret we have made the difficult decision to suspend our camp programming this summer as a result of COVID-19 and to minimize the exposure and spread among our campers, their families, and our staff. The City of Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department announced earlier this month that they were making changes to their community center site-based summer programs, including the cancellation of all off-site “field trips”. Because we transport large groups of campers and staff twice weekly, Camp Colley was included in this designation. With this in mind and with the White House and Center for Disease Control’s explicit social distancing guidance for schools, childcare centers and camps, we had no other option but to cancel our 2020 summer season. We are saddened that we will be unable to host Phoenix’s underserved children at Camp Colley this summer at a time that they most certainly need it most. Unfortunately, our program operations do not allow us to “wait and see” what the state of Arizona’s COVID-19 data will look like in mid-June. Our staff has invested significant time in developing a robust and impactful program for these children. And although we will be unable to implement these programs this year, we look forward to putting things in place for next year’s Camp Colley season. Because many of our campers will still be participating in Phoenix Recreation Center site-based programming throughout the summer, we are working with city staff from those locations to bring elements of our program to...

We Are Keeping An Eye On Camper Safety

As more information surfaces on our community’s necessary response to keep us safe amidst COVID-19 it has become clear that our 2020 season is not a guarantee. As a response, we have begun contingency planning to ensure our campers have access to nature-based learning and growth this year. One alternative plan is delaying the start our season by one month and offering 5 weeks of programming at the end of June through July. These sessions would mirror the same program design that we have developed over the last several months and would simply shorten our summer. If COVID-19 has not cleared up in time for our camp season to safely operate, we will move to overnight weekend camps throughout the fall and spring. This new program design would bring Phoenix kids to weekend-long retreats at Camp Colley where they will have the chance to hike, mountain bike, participate in campfires and astronomy activities, and learn about environmental sustainability and stewardship. Depending on how our 2020 season unfolds, our goal is to bring at least 200 children to Camp Colley before the start of our 2021 season. Our eye is on the bullseye: to provide opportunities for Phoenix children to experience positive learning and growth in nature. More than ever Phoenix children need safe and constructive access to the outdoors. We are prepared to mobilize our resources to send groups of kids into nature for learning and growth as soon as it becomes safe to do so. As always, thank you for your ongoing support. Wishing you health and wellness as we navigate this difficult time together. Stay tuned to...

Camp Colley Leaps Into Year-Round Program

For more than 15 years the Camp Colley Foundation has dreamt of engaging Phoenix children from city neighborhoods in year-round nature programs beyond the summer months at Camp Colley. The Foundation’s new role as the camp operator has allowed that vision to become a reality. Beginning in September 2020 the Camp Colley Foundation will launch its first program for campers to experience positive learning and growth in their communities and nearby nature settings throughout the school year. The Camp Colley Foundation has secured two grants to launch this program expansion. Through the generosity of the Phoenix IDA and support from Fry’s Food Stores & Kroger’s ‘Zero Hunger Zero Waste’ sustainability initiative, hundreds of underserved Phoenix children will learn about critical environmental science issues that impact the health of wilderness in Arizona and beyond. Participants will also learn and practice key behaviors aimed to curb neighborhood litter and food waste and will have the opportunity to complete environmental stewardship projects in local parks and forests. The intended outcomes of this program include increased environmental science learning, building foundational behaviors to care for the health of nature and the environment, and advancing the development of social-emotional skills learned at Camp Colley like leadership and self esteem. Outcomes will be evaluated annually to drive quality improvements to program content and design to maximize impact. The Camp Colley Foundation has gotten a tremendous head start to fund this two-year project thanks to the Phoenix IDA and Fry’s Food Stores & Kroger’s ‘Zero Hunger Zero Waste’ and looks forward to continuously engaging Phoenix campers all year long. Sincerely, Richard Berg, Executive Director Camp Colley...
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