Registration for Carrboro summer camps opens; Chapel Hill sign-ups to begin in March

Chapel Hill and Carrboro have released their summer camp program schedule for the 2023 season.

Registration for the Town of Carrboro Parks and Recreation camps opened in early January. Registration will open on March 21 for residents and March 23 for non-residents for the Town of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation camps. 

Lizzie Burrill, senior recreation supervisor for the Town of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation department, said the Town will be offering a variety of day camps and specialty camp programs for kids aged 5 and older. 

The day camps will be held at the Chapel Hill Community Center, the Hargraves Community Center and Scroggs Elementary School. There will also be a teen extreme camp with two options to choose from: a DIY maker camp and a sports camp. The day programs will last anywhere between three to six hours a day, Burrill said. 

Athletic Specialist for the Town of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department Mike Troutman said he will oversee the specialty sports camps. 

Camps will offer basketball, flag football, tennis and volleyball as week-long half-day camps, according to Troutman. There will also be full-day camps offered in tennis and Jump Start Sports camps. 

 The sports camps will be available to a range of kids, between ages 7 to 12, Troutman said. 

Burrill said there will also be financial assistance available based on family income and size of household. 

“Depending on where you qualify, with the number of people in your household and your annual income, you will receive either a 90% discount, a 50% discount or a 25% discount,” she said. 

She also mentioned that families that are part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Medicaid will automatically qualify for aid. 

Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation will also be hiring well over 100 individuals this summer to support the summer programs, with pay starting at $15.85 per hour, Burrill said. 

“We have a variety of different opportunities, specifically for camp counselors, summer camp coordinators, so those people that kind of do more of the planning of camps, more responsibility, and they supervise the camp counselors,” she said. “Then we have what we call inclusion support staff, so those individuals that will come in and help campers who have disabilities.”

Troutman said the sports camps will also be hiring individuals who are experienced in the specific sports being offered. 

“We are going to be looking for some camp staff for basketball, volleyball and flag football,” he said. “We would want (age) 18 or above for those camps, and we would want somebody who was familiar with those sports and has the availability to be there.”

The Town of Carrboro Parks and Recreation Department will also be running multiple summer camps ranging from arts, STEM and sports programs. 

Galen Poythress, a recreation supervisor for the Town of Carrboro, will be specifically overseeing fishing and mountain biking camps, along with a drama camp.

The mountain biking camps will be held in the trails around Martin Luther King Jr. Park and the fishing camps will be located at Hank Anderson Fishing Pond. 

Registration for the Carrboro camps opened on Jan. 4 for Carrboro residents and Jan. 5 for anyone else who was interested, Poythress said. 

He said the camps will run, at the earliest, from the second week of June until school starts in mid-August. 

Poythress emphasized how important summer camps are now for kids in the age of technology.

“I think it's important for kids to be outside and develop relationships with their friends, with nature, with skills and talents they might not know they have, whether it be riding a bike or learning how to identify trees,” he said. 

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