George and Mary Stein run a big camp in Denver’s tony Hilltop neighborhood, where parents shell out $425 a week for their kids to learn to kayak, cook, become better citizens and more. The camp, now heading into its third season, is so popular it’s largely booked already.
This summer 60 kids mostly from three schools in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood will attend the same camp, Dream Big Day Camp — only all of the fun will take place in their own neighborhood. The cost? Free.
“We feel it is incumbent upon us to give back,” said George Stein. “This is the first year for (the free camp). We are hoping it will grow.”
Both camps are the full-time work of the Steins, who clocked about 50 years between them working at camps in New York state before moving to Colorado and giving it a shot in the West.
“Back East, children go to sleepaway camp for four to seven or eight weeks,” said Mary. “What they are doing back East is focusing on the stability, the consistency. Out here that is not the norm, the tradition, the culture. When we moved here we knew there wasn’t a program like what we were used to. We wanted to bring that to Denver.”
When kids come to the camp at Hilltop, the minimum stay is three weeks, and during that stretch they might learn how to rock climb and swim; they could learn how to be a good friend; how to play golf; and how to shoot arrows. That, and more. The idea is to put as many activities as possible under one roof.
“When we did market research, we found mothers were driving all over town to different camps. It was too much,” said Mary Stein. “We tried to make this as easy as possible.”
Tight staff-to-student ratios are vital too, the Steins said. For this summer, they will work with about 85 camp counselors, bringing the ratio down to about one counselor for every four kids.
The Five Points camp will last only a week, but the kids will get many of the same programs as those at Hilltop.
Both camps are based at Denver public schools: the Hilltop camp at Steck Elementary and Hill Middle School, and the Five Points camp at Manual High School. For the Hilltop camp, the Steins pay rent for the use of the schools. Since they are giving away the camp at Five Points, they aren’t being charged, said Andrew Raicevich, a Denver Public Schools official.
Through its “community use” program, the school district is using the rent money from Hilltop to help pay for other school-district programs and needs, Raicevich said. The school system rents out its buildings and fields as much as possible, but no organizations come close to the extent to which Dream Big Day Camp leverages school facilities.
“Community use comes in a whole bunch of different ways,” Raicevich said. “We have churches that have services on Sundays. Pickup basketball leagues. Soccer is really popular. But there is only one of this size, without a doubt. This is a big organization. It’s growing. I’ve witnessed some of the stuff and it’s impressive.”
Raicevich said 20 kids each from Whittier, Cole and Gilpin elementary schools will attend camp this summer. He said it has not yet been determined which kids will get the week of free camp.
The goal is the same for all kids who come to a Dream Big Day Camp, said George Stein.
“We want to create an anchor for them,” he said. “That’s not easy. Our orientation is to get them in, have them feel connected, have them feel better about themselves, have them make friends. We feel those are lifelong skills. That’s what we want them to develop.”
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
