A Letter from the Director

A Letter from the Director

May 23, 2020

Dear CSA community member,

The Camp St. Andrews Leadership Committee (CLC) hopes you’re all remaining healthy — physically, of course, but also financially and emotionally. As an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization, our sole personal interest in CSA is our devotion to seeing its present and future success. For 49.5 years, we’ve focused squarely on ensuring each camp session is a memorable, magical experience for our campers, leader trainees, and staff; that CSA would always have the resources it needs for the latter to occur; and to continue expanding our camp community, sharing this unique experience with ever more families.

For the above to occur, there are certain fundamentals that must be secured each year — some that we might have previously taken for granted: a camp facility, camper transportation, safe food, coronavirus-less air and surfaces, clean water, etc.

The moment some of these essentials were thrown into question, the CLC began watching the situation closely and discussing potential courses of action, along with determining when we thought we’d have sufficient information and up-to-date statuses on official state and local health orders that would be applicable to mid-July. We decided to hold off making the final “Go” or “No-Go” decision for CSA 2020 until June 15. In the meantime, though, we’ve switched our online registration site to waitlist all new registrants and staff applicants until that June date, and paused all payment plans for existing registrants. While we’ve all been affected by the current situation to varying degrees, we know many of you have been hit especially hard financially, so we hope this provides some small relief.

When the time comes for us to make the final call for CSA 2020, if the circumstances persist in which we’re unable to legally, practically, and safely proceed with this summer’s camp session, we’ll have a few refund options for existing registrants to choose, be it a full refund, credit for camp next year, or to tax-deductibly donate some or all of your fee to CSA. If we are able to proceed with this summer’s session, we’ll first confirm you’re still interested before registering waitlisters or reactivating payment plans for existing registrants.

While it would break our hearts to miss a year of camp — disappointing so many whom we consider family — CSA and Camp Jack Hazard are beholden to orders in multiple counties, and we will always prioritize our attendees’ safety above all else.

Whether I’m able to see you next at camp in July, or at our Alumni Weekend in September, or CSA’s Christmas party in December, or not until CSA 2021, I’ll miss you until then and I love you all!

Mike Siemsen
Director 2020
Camp St. Andrews

Registrations team contact info:
registrations@campsaintandrews.org
(650) 445-4555