Summer is just in front of us and the hopeful optimism for a great experience together continues to increase. Our team has remained in weekly contact with our locations and while we have had some sadly decide to not host this summer, many others are working hard to prepare a safe experience for you and your students. We have worked to relocate those that we can to locations that remain open and have been hearing from them more related to potential protocols and plans during our time together. Below are some updates related to our GENERATE StaySafe plans.
Guidelines will include, but not limited to:
- Pre-attendance education for campers, leaders, and staff of the guidelines in place will be required. Before you come to camp it will be important to make sure you and your group are aware of any location-specific guidelines. These will be shared more in full in May as locations finalize their summer protocols. Currently, we have continued to make progress in many parts of the country and have seen potential guidelines continuing to improve.
- GENERATE will have an expanded training focus with GENERATE staff, including preventative best practices related to health and safety, and clear protocols related to guests with symptoms or exposure.
- We are expecting an expanded pre-camp and day 1 screening for churches to perform with campers including a health checklist, temp check, symptom check, COVID contact check-off, and guardian sign-off. If the screening checklist deems a participant in the higher-risk category by the CDC guidelines, they will need approval from their healthcare provider to attend camp. You will be responsible to make sure that you conduct a pre-camp screening checklist for ALL your students and adults before you depart from camp. Included in this update is the Pre-Camp Medical Screening Checklist and we will also have it available on our Tool Kit and Parent Page at www.generatestudents.com. At registration and check-in on the first day of camp, you will need to verify that you have received 100% of the screenings back from your group.
- All group leaders will need to follow a basic daily checklist and temp checks for all guests while at GENERATE. This will be something that will be asked of ALL group leaders that have students coming to camp this summer. Each group should bring a contactless thermometer and have temp checks each morning before your quiet time (what we call “Encounters” on the daily schedule) and each night as a part of your church group time. This will be the responsibility of each church while at camp.
- Isolation protocols will be in place. We will be working with our locations to have set aside isolation rooms where available. If a participant displays any symptoms during their stay at camp, they will be moved to an isolation room to determine symptoms and a safety plan for that individual as well as the rest of your group. If a participant needs to be removed from campus, the church will need to make those arrangements with the parents or family of the individual.
- GENERATE and the hosting campus will enforce reduced capacity and scheduled mealtimes by color codes (where needed.) We are working with locations on meal distribution and traffic flow that is conducive to each campus and crowd. At some campuses, your group may be assigned a color code that correlates with your mealtime. These mealtimes will stagger every 15 mins to spread out capacity in meal locations. We also have other natural staggers built into the daily schedule to help accommodate capacities.
- Main worship gathering seating capacity adjustments will be set in place as needed. For all camp locations, the county and state governments determine any limits on group sizes that can meet. We have continued to work with our locations to solidify what these limits will be, and when needed we will be offering a two-service daily schedule. If a two-service schedule is needed, it will take some flexibility by all parties. In the morning, Kickstart will have half of the camp while the other half is in their quiet time (Encounters). Half of the camp will be in worship in the evening while the other half is in their Prayer Gathering (or Village Bible Studies for SERVE churches). In both of those, they will then flip to the other activity. This will also require two adult leaders’ meetings in the morning (Village Group Leaders) and two Youth Minister Meetings in the evening. A double service schedule is less than desirable for all parties, but together we can make it work to host your group well if required. We will know more about that need in May and let you know if it impacts your camp.
- GENERATE will perform daily health screenings on all GENERATE staff, including temp and symptoms checks twice a day and isolation protocols if symptoms are present. Like participants, our staff will have checks performed each morning and evening.
- Expanded “sanitation stations” for guests including hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes will be in place as needed. We are working with our locations and incurring increased fees to make sure that items are as sanitized as possible throughout the week.
- Hygiene and safety reminders will be present during the experience through signage prompts around campus, on main screens, and from the stage.
- Scheduled daily cleaning will take place in common spaces, on door handles, and other highly interactive areas.
- Mask or face covering guidelines will be in place (where/when required). We know this is a big question that many have asked. We are required to abide by local and state guidelines as well as the guidelines set by our hosting locations. If we are in a location that requires face coverings for gatherings, we will enforce the wearing of face coverings (for those without a medical exemption) as a part of our guidelines. This guideline may be different for indoor gatherings compared to outside experiences. We will be able to share more about the guidelines of each location in our May update.
- There will be some adjusted programming. We have made a few adjustments to certain free-time options CONNECT options, and other games during the week to lessen the close contact amongst participants. We all love bumper balls but can do without them this summer and still have a fantastic camp experience.
We know the last 12+ months have been difficult for you and your ministry. We know you need and deserve an excellent summer camp experience. While we are all still dealing with various hurdles and adjustments, we will continue to strive to serve you well while also prioritizing the safety of your students, adults, and our staff. The future is bright, but we are all going to have to continue to be patient together as we work toward camp this summer. The guidelines given above are a baseline for safety protocols at GENERATE this summer. We will have more specific location updates in May.