Canada’s first dedicated Jewish overnight camp for children with special needs is confident it will launch on time next year—because it’s purchased the grounds that have long belonged to Camp Tamarack in Bracebridge, Ont.
Kayla’s Children Centre (KCC) plans a 2026 launch for a new Muskoka summer satellite of the therapy clinic, recreational centre and Jewish day school for special needs children, all of which operate from its facility in Thornhill, Ont.
The centre also runs a day camp, and it has organized overnight programs at camps around Ontario since 2012, although those experiences had been limited to renting sites for about 10 days at the tail end of the summer season.
Camp Tamarack’s property was secured thanks to a donation from Toronto philanthropist Larry Robbins and his family. (KCC declined to specify how much the family contributed.)
KCC has already begun to identify and plan to add several accessibility accommodations to the existing facilities, in particular on the waterfront where lifts will be needed for dockside transfers from wheelchairs to boats.
Camp Tamarack, which roots as a Boy Scouts camp in the 1950s and ’60s and has operated a co-ed camp at the site since 1981—and hosted generations of Jewish and non-Jewish campers—will wind down its tenure after this summer, according to Rick and Ellen Howard, a married couple who are its current owners.
Mira Lax, director of marketing for KCC, says the organization—which services more than 450 families annually, helping special needs individuals anywhere from six weeks to 21 years of age—had been looking to purchase its own camp property for some time.
“Many of [these] children are not able to go to a typical overnight camp. It wouldn’t have the medical care. It wouldn’t have adapted activities or the facilities wouldn’t be appropriate,” she told The CJN.
“There wouldn’t be enough specialized care, especially on the medical side, for a parent to feel comfortable sending their child to an overnight camp for typically developing children.”
She described the plan to build out the site with an accessible waterfront, adapted activities, and all the necessary medical equipment, which could include specialized beds—all to ensure child safety.
“Experiencing the joys of summer camp is really the priority,” said Lax, noting that KCC’s highly specialized program will be the “only Jewish overnight camp dedicated to these children.”
Camp Ramah, for example, currently runs an inclusion program, “but we will be dedicated to children with complex needs and developmental disabilities.”
From about 70 to as many as 100 campers have attended the previous overnight programs, says Lax, who estimates similar numbers at first. Once established, though, the camp may start to see greater enrolment.
Past overnight camp programs have included children as young as three or four years old, says Lax, although many are school-aged campers. “All of the children who come to overnight (programs) are part of other programs we run throughout the year, so they are comfortable with our staff and we are very familiar with their medical needs.
“We service children with physical disabilities, cognitive delays, autism spectrum disorder—really any child who would not succeed in a mainstream school or camp, can come to our program and what that program looks like for them is customized based on the child’s needs and the parents’ goals and the child’s therapeutic goals.”
The camp has plans to eventually add other therapeutic spaces, including a Snoezelen room, also known as a therapy gym, plus treatment rooms, and to make the ropes course fully accessible.
“We’re going to obviously address the most pressing [accessibility and medical needs] first so that we can get up and running, and then as we go continue to add specialized spaces.”
Children from as far as Winnipeg and Ottawa have attended previous overnight camp programs offered by KCC at other camp locations in Ontario. Now, the permanent site allows KCC to offer more summer staffing opportunities to support the camp’s operations and children’s personal care needs.
“We have a number of our staff stay with us throughout the year, and then we have a lot of really dedicated staff who only work for us in the summer, but they’re so committed to the children that they work with that often they’ll request the same child to work with the same child on a repeated basis. We’re very lucky to have such dedicated staff,” including personal support workers, therapists, and educational staff, many of whom double as summer staff, says Lax.
Founded in 2017, KCC is a specialized private school, daycare, and therapy centre, which came together out of the merger of two other organizations: Zareinu Educational Centre of Metropolitan Toronto and Project AIM Programs.
KCC’s in-house social worker helps families access government funding to subsidize some of the costs of school programs, including via Childcare York Region, where they are based.
Sheindl Belenky, chief financial officer for KCC, says that overnight camps are often ineligible for funding—unlike school, they are seen as recreational—so KCC often appeals to foundations but she says there may be good news ahead for funding toward camp fees.
On average, it cost KCC $5,000 a child for a 10-day overnight camp program, she said, noting that KCC capped its fees at $2,000.
KCC had already been looking at permanent sites for purchase, Belenky said, when in October 2023 CEO Yaffi Scheinberg contacted the Robbins family about a property and required a quick reply.
“They [the Robbins family] had responded with ‘call us after Sukkot’… then, Oct. 7 happened.”
KCC wondered how they could pursue a project requiring a large donation, when philanthropists were directing their funds to Israel at that time.
While the other camp deal fell through, the Robbins family felt supporting the project was the only response, says Belenky.
“[The family’s] message to KCC was, ‘I want you to find a campground. It wasn’t meant to be for that site… Find a place. We’re going to help you. We’re going to fund the purchase.’”
