Let’s set the scene.

Tuesday, June 2, 12:30 PM, in a meeting room under the US Capitol.

Staffers filed in for lunch and a briefing hosted by the Senate Camp Caucus. The program: Camp Safety, Preparedness, and Protecting America's Youth.

This was the first congressional briefing the camp industry has run on its own.

What Was Announced

Henry DeHart, ACA CEO, opened with scale. More than 20,000 camps across the country, a million staff hired every year, and 26 million kids served each summer. He reflected on the tragedy in Texas and last summer's terrible losses.

Then he turned to the work that ACA and so many camps have been doing to double down on safety, bringing new tools and resources to the field.

Henry made concrete one fact that the field has not heard often enough: when Texas wrote new emergency planning and preparedness regulations after last summer, roughly 80 percent of what passed came directly from ACA standards.

That is true in other states that have passed similar laws. It’s the kind of impact ACA delivers day after day — steadily strengthening foundational safety practices year after year, learning lessons, and building capacity.

Then came the partnerships.

ACA’s Sterling Leija described The Safety Navigator platform for camps, which has an interactive risk assessment tool and one-on-one access to safety experts. It provides a central point where all of camps’ safety-related resources can live and be shared.

A School Safety Task Force collaboration with DHS and CISA. Evidence-based abuse-prevention training partners. Generac generators at meaningful member discounts. A wireless emergency notification partnership.

And an expanded relationship with AccuWeather Business Solutions for site-specific weather analysis and automated alerts.

The AccuWeather partnership comes with a named meteorologist whose phone number accompanies every warning. When something hits the radar, a camp can call and ask whether the storm is going to plow over the site or pass six miles away.

First Street

ACA’s new partnership with First Street was the day’s headline.

First Street builds risk models for flood, wildfire, wind, and heat at the level of a single building. Their data appears on Zillow and Realtor.com and informs decisions at the Federal Reserve and in the Office of Management and Budget. Starting soon, every camp in America will have access to the same tools with an easy-to-use graphical interface AT NO COST TO CAMPS!

Ed Kearns, First Street’s chief science officer and a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, pulled up Camps Kenwood & Evergreen on the platform.

He layered surface-water risk over a 100-year flood event, then zoomed to individual building outlines, showing which structures might be at risk in that scenario and which would stay dry. The platform can even project the risks from flooding, heat, wind, and wildfire 15 and 75 years out, using consensus models about the impact of climate change.

Eighty percent of flood damage in the United States comes from outside FEMA flood zones. Only 4 percent of homes are flood insured. The maps most camps have been using are blunt instruments. Now the field has a precise one. This new tool is a game changer.

It will enable camps to prepare for weather events that have never happened but could pose a danger to kids and staff. It will raise awareness at every level and help camps do what we do best. Namely, prepare and train our staff to care for our kids and keep them as safe as possible in a rapidly changing world.

More on this amazing, new, cost-free, safety tool coming soon! We will have training and resources so that every camp can access this.

The Foundation

Steve Baskin, ACA board chair, closed with the story of an eight-year-old kid who was terrified to show up at his first camp and the 32-year career he built on what that camp gave him. The point was simple: everything camp delivers sits on a foundation. Safety is that foundation. And kids need camp now more than ever. Every kid.

Camp professionals are some of the best planners I know. They now have access to state-of-the-art data and tools to support long-term planning for worst-case scenarios. The First Street partnership is revolutionary, and its technology and harnessing of data is quite simply mind-blowing.

The field has been waiting for someone to set the standard for impact through partnership. On Tuesday, ACA walked into the room and did it with First Street, the Safety Navigator, and our other new partners, building on the foundation of existing partnerships with organizations like FEMA and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Every camp in this country benefits when the field has a credible voice in Washington setting the standard. We are deepening connections through our Camp Caucus, educating our congressional leaders and their staff about the challenges facing our field and the incredible opportunities that lie ahead.

Getting more kids to camp, strengthening camps through new initiatives and resources, and helping our children to thrive in this rapidly changing world with all that they learn at camp — that’s the whole reason this caucus exists.

The room is bigger now. Keep showing up.

Join the movement. Get updates on the Camp Caucus and learn how you can support camp advocacy in DC.

Scott Brody is ACA’s Government Affairs co-chair and leads the association’s advocacy efforts in Washington, DC. He served as ACA National Board Chair during the COVID-19 crisis, helping guide camps nationwide through safe reopening while securing unprecedented federal support. A camp director for more than 30 years, Scott is Director Emeritus of Camps Kenwood & Evergreen and owner of Everwood Day Camp and Camp Sewataro. He has dedicated his career to advancing the life-changing impact of camp and championing its value on a national stage.