CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A 57-acre New Hampshire summer camp has been shuttered and listed for sale the year it would have celebrated its 100th anniversary.
The financial strain of running Concords Camp Spaulding proved too great, according to the president of nonprofit Waypoint. Waypoint, formerly known as Child and Family Services, has owned Camp Spaulding since 1921, the Concord Monitor reported.
“We don’t do youth activities. We don’t have counselors around. … Every single summer we had to hire staff for the program - really challenging,” Waypoint’s president, Borja Alvarez de Toledo, said.
Waypoint contracted with the YMCA of Greater Nashua to run the camp five years ago, with half of the 240 children in the overnight program provided by Waypoint on a subsidized model and half paying fees around $1,500.
Neither side was able to meet its goals, falling short of the $400,000 annual budget.
“We weren’t able to serve enough children to make it work financially on a long-term basis,” Nashua YMCA CEO Mike LaChance said.
In addition, the age of the facilities at Camp Spaulding created other issues. Alvarez de Toledo said that the pool was built 42 years ago and is not large enough for 240 children and that the soccer fields are just fields.
“It would take $4 million to $5 million to bring it to a level that would make it competitive with other camps,” Alvarez de Toledo said. “The question posed by board and management team: Would that bring the camp to a level where it would compete in the marketplace? We weren’t sure.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.