Workers on the Down East Household YMCA needed to ship out a painful announcement to oldsters Friday, letting them know that one of many Y’s summer time camp applications can be ending this week — only a week after it began — as a result of a scarcity of workers.
The YMCA has been in a position to get dozens of staff for different age teams at its Camp Discovery in Eastbrook, in addition to lifeguards for its pool in Bucksport. But it surely couldn’t muster sufficient individuals to legally maintain its “snappers” program working for 37 youngsters between fifth and eighth grade.
The staffing disaster has change into a typical drawback for employers throughout Maine, but it surely’s one that’s acutely felt by summer time camps, a number of Down East camp administrators stated because the season will get underway this month.
“We simply don’t have the personnel to satisfy the state-mandated ratios,” stated Peter Farragher, the YMCA’s CEO. “It’s powerful. I’ve been right here 24 years, and I’ve by no means seen a workers problem like this.”
Earlier than it was known as off, the snappers program already had a ready listing of 72 children — practically twice the variety of children who had been in this system — as a result of it couldn’t settle for extra campers with its small workers.
The 15 or so counselors who had been purported to be working with the snappers program will probably be moved to different components of the camp, which usually has between 130 and 150 campers every summer time.
Farragher estimated that the snappers program wanted about 4 to 5 workers to maintain it going, but it surely was already a herculean effort to fill the YMCA’s different positions.
The camp was in a position to get artistic after the YMCA couldn’t discover a faculty bus driver to fill a $26 an hour place gig to ferry children from the Moore Group Heart in Ellsworth to the camp property. With out anybody who might drive a bus, the YMCA borrowed vans that camp workers might drive from the native faculty district.
However such a workaround wasn’t attainable for the camp workers crunch.
“Our households have been very form and understanding, however we really feel horrible we weren’t in a position to accommodate their wants,” Farragher stated.
The halting of the snappers program and tightened camper counts as a result of lack of workers have despatched ripples elsewhere in Hancock County, an space that already struggled to maintain up with the demand for summer time camp applications, stated John Izenour, the director of operations at Camp Beech Cliff in Mount Desert.
Izenour stated his camp, which has virtually been in a position to get again to pre-pandemic staffing ranges, acquired tons of calls from mother and father who’ve had their summer time childcare plans change on the final minute. However he’s needed to flip them away as a result of Camp Beech Cliff is full.
The Mount Desert Island YMCA was solely in a position to get the workers it wanted the day earlier than its summer time camp applications began final week, stated CEO Ann Tikkaken.
“We simply managed to get sufficient individuals,” she stated.
However even with an envious full complement of workers, each Beech Cliff and the MDI YMCA anxious in regards to the potential for COVID instances, which might trigger drastic operation adjustments at a second’s discover.
“Our space usually doesn’t have sufficient spots for camp children,” Izenour stated. “These points don’t make it any simpler.”
The Down East Household YMCA vows to convey again the snappers subsequent yr and is engaged on creating a counselor-in-training program to assist bolster its staffing numbers.
“It’ll return,” Farragher stated.
