This place is awesome. It's very unstructured: kids can choose to participate in scheduled…read moreactivities, pick an activity room instead, or even just spend the day roaming around playing with their friends.
We haven't gone this year yet (I'll update when that changes!) but last summer, they had:
* Baking: kids could learn to make the baked good of the day, from pies to pizzas, and help with baking lunch for the camp;
* A sewing room: bins of fabric and notions, supplies for hand sewing, sewing machines and an instructor on hand to teach kids how to use them, patterns, and stuffing;
* A fashion show where kids who got really into that sewing room could show their work off;
* An arts and crafts room, with regular projects as well as the option to just come in and make whatever you wanted;
* A STEM room with robotics, stop motion animation, and other cool supplies;
* Sports, bubbles, etc outside;
* A dance room with music playing and cool lights;
* I think also a quiet room where you could just chill out and read or decompress;
* And a different bounce house each week!
The food looked great. There were a lot of options, from pizza to salad. The food changes each year, depending on who they can get to cater it.
All of it sounded amazing, which helped a lot. Because my kid has struggled with separation anxiety disorder, and maybe agoraphobia. Finding a camp he'd actually be EXCITED to go to was the key here.
He put in a lot of emotional work to make it in the door. We spent many days just driving up and sitting in the car outside, talking through his feelings, sometimes getting out for a little while, before the day he decided he could go in.
And I cannot thank Steve & Kate's enough for providing a structure where that's POSSIBLE. Very few camps have drop-in policies. With most places, you have to sign up five or six months in advance, because they're on focused topics and have limited space.
Even with more general camps, you can rarely sign up for just a day at a time, or let them know at the last minute that you're coming -- understandably!!!
At Steve & Kate's, not only can you just show up the day of camp and register there if you need to - you can also show up at any point in the day, and they'll still let you in.
That's HUGE. That's HUGE even under normal circumstances.
When you can't tell in advance whether your kid will be able to go in, or will have a series of panic attacks in the car until you take him back home, BUT you really need to practice going to a place like camp before you try to go to Actual School, that's EXCEPTIONALLY HUGE.
He can practice going, and test his own boundaries, and gently move out of his comfort zone, at his own pace, WITHOUT ME PAYING FOR A CAMP HE DOESN'T END UP GOING TO. And without holding an empty spot that some other family needed!
In accessibility terms, that is HUGE.
On top of that, my kid - who values kindness very highly, especially in adults - was super impressed by how KIND everyone there was.
The first day he went, he had trouble getting lunch because the kids were crowding instead of lining up (or the line collapsed into a crowd) and he couldn't figure out how to get to the food.
He spoke very highly of one staff member who noticed he wasn't eating, gently asked if he needed help getting food, and then brought him pizza. He said everyone was kind, but that one was SUPER kind.
I also noticed, while waiting to pick him up, that lots of other kids were clearly on friendly terms with the staff. I heard kids talking about different staff members very positively, and I saw kids mobbing different ones to ask them interesting questions or joke around with them.
I was personally very impressed by the staff's kindness too. I reached out to the camp ahead of time to tell them about my kid's struggles. They scheduled a time for us to tour the campus while it was in session, see all the different areas, ask any questions, and talk about anything they could do to support him. Just really super-nice people all around.
I also loved having the option to check him in online the night before, or the morning of, if I was pretty sure he was going... and the refund policy that gives me back the money for days he doesn't go!
Even though he was really excited about the sewing room and stop motion animation in particular, he spent most of the time just making new friends and hanging out with them.
And I think that's great. He loved his time there. The time he spent practicing going, and actually going, made it so much easier for him to start school in the fall.
1000/10 stars. Love this place. It was about $100/day, which feels like a lot but is really just on the slightly high end for camps. Well worth it for the flexibility and the range of activities available, even without the accessibility. Absolutely delightful and fantastic, kinda wish they had one just for grownups!
