Dear Families,

As Thanksgiving nears, we have so much to be thankful for at GUCI. After a summer away, our community was back together in Zionsville for a summer of in-person connections, friends new and old, and joyful Judaism. Today we are thankful that registration is already open for next summer and so many of our families have already signed up to return to GUCI next summer. We can’t wait to welcome your family back to Zionsville!

As you have seen over the last year and a half, throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic, the health and safety of our entire community is always the most sacred value that guides our URJ Camps and Israel Programs.  With that in mind, today, we are writing to share a couple of important policy updates for Summer 2022 at GUCI.

For Summer 2022, we are requiring all age-eligible participants, staff, volunteers, and guests to be fully vaccinated, as defined by the CDC, against COVID-19. The URJ has a long history of requiring vaccinations for our community, and we believe strongly that preserving life and maintaining the health of our entire community is a core Jewish value.

Knowing that our entire age-eligible community will be vaccinated against COVID-19 allows us to also adjust our other mitigation strategies from this past summer. We will have additional information about these adjustments in the coming months and look forward to returning to a more typical summer experience in many ways. As part of that, for Summer 2022, we plan to return to a more typical time-off policy for our staff that includes time off of our property.  Our staff truly went above and beyond in Summer 2021, living onsite at camp for 10 weeks with very limited time off our property. In consultation with our medical advisors, we believe that we can safely return to more traditional time off in Summer 2022. As always, the health and well-being of our entire community is our highest priority and we expect staff to behave in ways that hold this value dear, in balance with local COVID-19 conditions, and guidance from local and state health authorities.

As a URJ system, it was a blessing to provide the gift of in-person camping/Israel experiences to over 11,000 campers and staff last summer through our URJ global camping community. We continue to hear the breathtaking stories about summer from campers, staff, parents and our broader community. We know that we all continue to need Camp more than ever before – children, teens, young and older adults – for the mental, emotional, social and spiritual growth and wellness that it provides. GUCI continues to be the place where our kids get to experience friendships, laughter, joy and life skills to strengthen their resolve, resilience and ability to be their best selves. Thank you for your continued trust and partnership in this important work.

For questions, we invite you to contact us at guci@urj.org.  Please note that our office will be closed next week, November 22 – 26, for the Thanksgiving holiday.  We look forward to responding to emails and calls about this letter and any other camp matters when we return the following Monday.  We hope you, your friends and family enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving!

L’shalom,
Jeremy

Jeremy Klotz
Director
Goldman Union Camp Institute