Dear Goldens Bridge neighbor, Day Camp families and alumni, and life-long GB community near and far:  

 

In these challenging times, I am so grateful that we have a unique community like Goldens Bridge, where folks look out for each other and cooperate for the common good.  Whether you’ve lived here for a year, have a child in the Day Camp,  or come from a family that’s been connected to the Colony for four generations, we share a special bond and we want to keep that bond strong.  The GB Day Camp is an integral part of the keeping our community vibrant and growing into the future. 

 

Many of us, and our children and grandchildren, share vivid memories of Day Camp from the 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and until the current moment.  I think of Day Camp as the heartbeat of Goldens Bridge Colony.  That's not just because I have had the great joy of seeing Zevi, my 6 year-old daughter, participate as a camper for the past three summers. Through her I do re-experience the memories of arts & crafts, folk dancing and drama in the Barn, the lifelong friendships that start there, the daily epic dirt road journey from the Barn to the Lake, learning and singing our liturgy of folksongs, those first campfires and camp-outs in the ballfield behind the Barn.  It’s also because the traditions of the Day Camp embody the values of GB – its very menstchlikheit (a bone-deep humanity, caring, sense of justice and fairness, warmth and folksiness), to use the Yiddish of our founders. 

 

Our community’s volunteers still run the program, now preparing for the 90th Summer in 2021. We have a growing number of young children from the Colony who will go on to become our CITs and counselors. We also serve children from the surrounding towns with a high-quality program at as low a cost as possible. In our most recent camp season we gave five full scholarships to local immigrant families. 

 

We fervently want to maintain the quality of our staff and program. Because of Covid-19 we will have considerable added expenses this summer.   This letter is reaching out to you, our GB neighbors, Day Camp alumni, and life-long Goldens Bridge friends from near and far,  to help us to keep the camp strong and vibrant by continuing to nurture its children, our future Colony members, friends and neighbors. Please give generously, and come enjoy GBDC’s wonderful children’s and family programming this coming summer.  

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With appreciation,

Billy Yalowitz, on behalf of Camp Committee members

Eric Stand

Annette Kroun

Jody Berkowitz Folster

Lori Fleiss

Rina Slavin

Mary Mahoney

Elana Shneyer 

JD Smyth

Dave McDonagh

 

Suggested donation amounts:

Cookout for campers $50

New Tent $120

Scholarship for a camper for the summer:       $400/week 

Sponsor a camp trip :  $1,000

Specialist’s (Art, Drama, Nature, Waterfront):    $3,000