July 28, 2020
Dear Camp Yavneh Kehilla (Community) and Chaverim (Friends),
I hope this message finds you well and enjoying the summer months in our new normal. Your partnership and support during the last few months has been incredibly helpful. On behalf of our Board of Directors and Yavneh staff, we are so grateful for the outpouring of offers to help Camp Yavneh during this difficult time. Thank you.
Your efforts are making a real difference as we work on ensuring camp can open next summer. We know we cannot do this work without you. Your generosity is truly inspiring.
Together, we’ve been able to:
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Apply for and receive a Payroll Protection Program grant of $275,000 from the Federal government.
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On May 18, 2020 we announced the cancelation of our summer camp season, the first in 76 years, and the Na’aleh trip to Israel. As an independent non-profit organization, the majority of Camp Yavneh’s revenue comes from tuition that covers both seasonal and year-round expenses.
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We explained that planning for summer is a year-round operation and that as of the beginning of April, we had already spent $1,600,000. These year-round expenses include; insurance, year round professionals, upkeep and maintenance of our 75 acre property, year round programs, marketing, recruitment, and administrative costs.
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Offer every Yavneh family a 100% camp tuition refund as well as an opportunity to sustain Camp Yavneh for the future. In response, an excess of 260 families gave over $505,000 of their tuition dollars back to camp! We also provided an option to roll tuition over to next summer (the rollover helps with temporary cash flow yet still requires us to fundraise our budget deficit so that we don’t find ourselves in a precarious situation in 2021).
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Receive an All Together Now matching grant from the Harold Grinspoon Foundation JCamp 180 that matched every tuition dollar converted to a donation back to Yavneh. We are proud to announce that we received our maximum grant of $117,000.
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Create summer “reimagined” for our campers through Yavneh Sheli, a free six-week virtual summer engagement program for campers in second grade all the way though Kerem. The program is run by our Roshes and supported by our senior staff.
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Hold our first Erev Yavneh B’Chagigah, a virtual benefit concert in support of Yavneh that raised $30,624 for camp. We are so grateful to Joel Sussman and Ari Glasgow and all those who helped make that night a success!
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Receive donations from our board, alumni, alumni parents, campers, staff, grandparents, camp parents, foundations and friends of our community.
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Receive vendor and insurance credits.
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To further cut our expenses, we also made the difficult decision to eliminate four year-round positions and make reductions in a number of staff salaries. Staff are donating their salary back as well.
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With feedback from our community we cancelled our popular Family Camp program and accepted the cancelation of future retreats at Yavneh going into the Fall as it would increase our deficit due to the expense of health and safety protocols.
Rest assured that while we are focused on the present, we are also preparing our budgets for next Summer and the joy that being reunited with our campers, counselors, roshes and staff will bring.
We are deeply appreciative of the support we’ve received from everyone. Still, we face a $450,000 deficit for a balanced budget on September 30th, the end of fiscal year. Together, we will continue to do all we can to raise these funds. There has never been a more important time than now to help camp. We would appreciate any help you can give in engaging with members of the community who might support our mission. If you are able to help with this effort, please be in touch with Adina Zarchan, Director of Philanthropy at adina@campyavneh.org.
Thank you for your partnership and helping us navigate these times and sustain Camp Yavneh for next summer and into the future.
Over the coming weeks, we will be engaging the greater alumni and alumni parent community (be sure to tune in for Yavneh’s Jewish Geography Zoom Racing on Sunday, August 16 at 8:00 pm).
Please show your support and help sustain Camp Yavneh by giving a tax-deductible donation here.
May you and your families continue to be safe and healthy.
Toda Raba,
Bil Zarch
Director
