By Clark Judge.
(March 3, 2022) — Once upon a time, and not that long ago, it looked as if the Deer Lake summer youth camp was in for a significant overhaul. The Connecticut Yankee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the group that owns the 255-acre Deer Lake reservation, would run the camp this summer while it sought to sell the property.
At least, that was the plan. Not anymore.
In mid-January, the Connecticut Yankee Council pulled an abrupt about-face. It agreed to lease the camp this summer to Pathfinders, Inc., a local non-profit steering committee to benefit outdoor education programs, in a move that keeps the youth camp … as well as directors Mark and Patty Clifton … in place for 2022.
Campers past and present hailed the news as a short-term victory and wondered what – if any – impact it could have on the sale of Deer Lake. That’s up to the Connecticut Yankee Council, which last month agreed to sell to a private developer … unless its offer, reportedly $4.625 million, is exceeded by March 31, 2022.
The only other offer on the table is from the Trust for Public Land, a non-profit that seeks to preserve Deer Lake as open space.
What happens in the next month remains to be seen, with politicians and preservationists scrambling to find a solution to keep the property as open space. What is certain, though, is that the summer youth camp that seemed headed in a different direction isn’t going there.
Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“We are thrilled to be connected with the Cliftons and Deer Lake,” said Kelly Webster, whose two daughters attend the camp. “Our girls were ecstatic when we shared the news that the camp was happening. We were holding out hope.”
Nevertheless, with the future of the camp in doubt as late as December, Webster approached her 10-year-old and asked if she was interested in another camp this summer. The response was immediate.
“It’s Deer Lake or nothing,” she told her mother. “I don’t want to go anywhere else.”
She signed up for four weeks this summer.
BACK FOR ANOTHER SUMMER
In 2021, the Deer Lake summer youth camp had its most successful season ever. In eight weeks running from late June through mid-August, over 1,000 campers spent parts of their summers there, with waiting lists running 40-50 deep each session.
Compare that to, say, the 598 campers who were there in 2019, and you begin to understand how high the bar was raised.
That should have been cause for celebration, but there was none. Shortly after the summer ended, the Connecticut Yankee Council announced that it would sell the Deer Lake property. Moreover, it notified the Cliftons that it planned to retain exclusive use of the day camp and that they were out as directors.
But that was then, and this is now … and now the Council has abandoned that idea, struck an 11th-hour deal with Pathfinders and the rest you can guess: Mark and Patty Clifton are where they didn’t expect to be months ago.
Back at Deer Lake.
“It’s been a roller-coaster ride,” said Patty Clifton. “When I heard (the Connecticut Yankee Council) wanted to rent this to Pathfinders, all I could think of is the image of the kids arriving every morning and talking, playing and gathering around the flagpole. Everybody should see it.”
Everybody can. What follows is what families need to know:
Dates: June 20-Aug. 12, with two one-week sessions and three of two weeks each.
Daily Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Ages: Grades K-8 for Day Camp; Grades 9-11 for Wilderness School.
Open House: Sunday, May 22, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
How to Register: Log on to deerlakedaycamp.org, and click on the link to get into the registration system.
Little about the camp differs from prior years. It typically averaged 50 counselors and seven skill-area directors, with approximately 180-190 campers per session. That shouldn’t change. But this will: Camp pay. It’s expected to go up … substantially, in all likelihood.
“It has to be increased,” said Patty Clifton. “I won’t come back unless we can pay (the staff) better, as close to minimum wage as possible.”
Normally, preparations for summer camp would have begun last fall, sometime around late October or early November. But because of the uncertain future, nothing was done until a contract was finalized in January. That has Clifton scrambling to catch up, but it beats the alternative. In fact, when she met with counselors shortly before Christmas, she became emotional when telling them there was a chance they could return in 2022.
“When I updated them,” she said, “I was beginning to lose it. And I could see they were, too. I apologized for falling apart, but I was so happy. In my heart, I kept stressing about our camp families. We knew it wasn’t going to end for them.”
And it hasn’t. As of this week, 771 campers are registered for this summer … and that happened in fewer than two weeks.
WHAT’S NEXT?
So where does that leave the sale of Deer Lake? That’s a separate issue. There’s been an outpouring of public support to keep the property an open space, with 1,500 followers on a Save Deer Lake Facebook page and a raft of politicians – including U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, state Rep. Christine Goupil, state Sen. Christine Cohen and Killingworth First Selectwoman Nancy Gorski – endorsing its preservation at a late January news conference.
“I am not anti-development,” Cohen said then. “I am anti-developing Deer Lake.”
What happens there will be decided by money that can or cannot be raised in the next month. In the meantime, the Deer Lake summer camp returns for another year, looking and operating much as it has the past three-and-a-half decades.
“You must be happy,” a pedestrian walking on to the Deer Lake campus told Patty Clifton late one afternoon.
It was Susan Willis, a mother of five who sent all five of her children to the summer camp – including four who went on to become counselors. She’d been walking her seven-year-old German shepherd when she saw Patty shoveling snow off the steps of the camp’s dining hall. So, she approached.
“Our entire family is connected to Deer Lake,” Willis said later. “This has been a standing summer tradition for us.”
That message was communicated to Clifton that day, with Willis telling her how her daughter reluctantly registered her 6-year-old son – a boy who attended Deer Lake the previous two summers – at another camp. But when she heard a contract had been brokered to keep the Cliftons and camp in place, she changed direction
She signed him up to Deer Lake and forfeited the deposit at the other camp.
“Parents, including more than my daughter, are relieved,” said Willis. “I know the future of Deer Lake has not been determined, but we have something of a reprieve where families can say at least this summer the camp is there for us.”
Photos by Clark Judge.
