Summer Recreation Program Cancelled Due to Ongoing COVID Restrictions

The Village of Mineola announced today that its annual Summer Recreation Program will be cancelled again this year due to ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions.

The Summer Recreation Program is permitted as a summer day camp under the authority of the New York State Department of Health.  Last year, the Village was forced to cancel its Summer Recreation Program due to State regulations.

While the State has permitted camps to re-open for the 2021 season, there are still numerous pandemic regulations in place governing their operations.  These regulations were only issued by the State on May 19.  They were further amended on May 24 and, again, on June 7, 2021.

Due to the late availability of these regulations, and the increased restrictions on both operations and programming, especially considering that children under 12 would be unvaccinated, the Village has decided that it is in the best interests of the health and safety of its children to forgo a 2021 Summer Recreation Program.

“The Village of Mineola always seeks to provide the children of our community with safe, fun summer programs, but we simply will not conduct a program for our children that does not place their health and safety foremost,” stated Mayor Scott Strauss.

In normal, pre-pandemic years, the Village would begin making plans for its Summer Recreation Program during the winter and spring months.  This includes programming and activities plans as well as hiring the appropriate staff needed to safely supervise and conduct its daily children’s activities.

The Village also faced certain undesirable options such as drastically limiting the number of children it could enroll in the program and eliminating any indoor activities on rainy days.

While the Village held off making this determination as late as possible while awaiting operating regulations, the prolonged holding period while the State developed its camp regulations made a late start highly problematic.

“Our children’s health and safety come first,” stated Mayor Strauss, “if we can’t guarantee a healthy setting for them, we will not do this.  We simply will not roll the dice with our children’s health.”

Plans are already being made to restore the annual Summer Recreation Program for the 2022 season when pandemic regulations are expected to expire.