Rabbi J……
quite simply it is the high cost of doing business. Housing and watching/entertaining and feeding the children 24/7. Maintaining the premises, liability insurance for places that have swimming can be astronomical.
When I went to camp in 1965 it was $204 for each month. Now the charge exceeds that per day.
I have written that the CTL children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc. do (have not gone off) go to camp, Instead we invested on an inground swimming pool, tennis, basketball, ball fields, etc in the compound. The children get to spend the entire summer with their extended family under the watchful eyes of family members, not overworked, underpaid teenagers. Over the past 40 years we have, as a family saved untold thousands keeping the children here and not shipping them off to camp.
I am not against camping. The late Mrs. CTL and I went to summer camp. My parents met at summer camp in the early 1930s. BUT times have changed and I am not comfortable with my extended offspring living in a cabin with 20 children and 1 or 2 teenagers as the supervision. Too much can and does go wrong.
How many of these camps are firetraps, built in hamlets without true building codes and enforcement. Yesterday I already saw the story in YWN of a camp fire this season in a girls camp.
BTW>>>>>>the expenses you have during the rest of the year has absolutely no bearing on the cost of running a summer camp and how much must be charged to break even.