This spring, foundation will announce its first grants, making available more than $225,000 for programs to improve Jewish camps across North America.
Grants will be used to increase camp capacity, strengthen the recruitment and training of camp staff, improve camp programs, encourage community lay leaders to promote Jewish camping and provide scholarships for Jewish campers.
“Jewish camping works,” Elisa Spungen Bildner said. “Our children return from their summers at Jewish camps, not only reciting Sabbath prayers and leading the Birkat Hamazon after meals, but with a profound love for their Jewish heritage. We want other Jewish children to share that love.”
Currently, about 30,000 Jewish youth — about 4 percent of all Jewish children ages 9 to 16 — attend a Jewish overnight camp each year. Of those attending the 85 such Jewish camps in the United States and the 20 in Canada, most attend one sponsored by the various religious or Zionist movements or by a Jewish community center. Nearly all of these camps are operating at full capacity.
The foundation has set a goal of tripling the number of Jewish youth attending camp each summer. Fulfilling that goal will require the acquisition or construction of some 100 new properties located within a two- to three-hour drive of major Jewish population centers.