Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2008

Children stay close to home for summer

As predictions early this year indicated that gasoline prices would hit an average $4 a gallon, the Olathe YMCA developed summer camps for children to stay close to home, said Pam Watkins, a youth director at the Y.

“We wanted to make kids feel like what they had was a vacation every day,” Watkins said.

Camp and program directors are getting a glimpse now as to whether the “summer of the staycation” actually came to be for Olathe families.

Summer camp attendance through the YMCA has seen a 9 percent increase from last year. The YMCA also offered free family memberships for families that signed up for eight weeks of summer camp. This year, 420 families signed up. That number is up from about 300 last year, Watkins said.

“Who knows if it is because of rising gas prices or because they just want to be more healthy,” Watkins said.

Jennifer Thurston, who leads a camp, said it seems parents have utilized the YMCA “for the convenience of it” as they work during the summer.

“A lot of them are staying closer,” Thurston said. “They’re going on vacation, but they’re going to the lake or stuff like that.”

At the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop and Farm, Leah Major said that she hasn’t seen the usual recreational vehicles, but that there are more children and local daily visitors.

“There are not so many travelers this year,” said Major, assistant to the site manager.

But at the summer history camp, for example, there is an extra child for every 10 last year, she said.

“What we are seeing is the local visitors: Shawnee Mission, Roland Park, Olathe,” Major said. The foot traffic in the Olathe Public Libraries has increased, too, especially for children, said Jennifer Adamson, director of children’s services.

At the end of last summer, 4,461 folders had been picked up for the summer reading program. This year, 5,679 have been picked up.

For Olathe Park and Recreation programs, signups are “down a little” and so is the number of pool-pass purchases, director Kevin Corbett said. Attendance at the free summer concert series and traffic in the parks is up, though, he said.

“What we see is a balance between the stay-at-home issues of fuel and the fact of there being less disposable income,” Corbett said.

Submit an ad