LI summer day camp for LGBTQ+ kids to expand to four weeks in 2019
Camp Ga'avah of Wheatley Heights will expand. Credit: Camp Ga’avah
A Long Island summer day camp for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender kids and their supporters or children of LGBTQ+ parents is expanding to four weeks for the summer of 2019 and will now cater to children ages 10 to 17.
Camp Ga’avah launched during the summer of 2018 as a one-week program at the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds in Wheatley Heights serving children 12 to 18. Ga’avah is Hebrew for pride, but campers don’t have to be Jewish to attend.
“We had a great week last summer with nine kids,” says Stephanie Abrams, director of development at the Friedberg JCC of Oceanside, which runs the program. “We’ve decided to move forward and do a four-week session from July 29 to Aug. 23.”
Camp will run as two self-contained two-week sessions; campers can register for one or both. The price hasn’t yet been determined, Abrams says. Campers will be grouped by age; the JCC is hoping for 30 campers in 2019.
Camp Ga’avah offers the traditional activities of a day camp — drama, sports, arts, trips, gaga. Swim will be optional. There also will be programming on relevant LGBTQ+ issues.
For more information or to register, call 516-634-4164 or visit friedbergjcc.org/camps.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
