Lakeland College’s youth sports camps are going ahead this year after developers found ways to work around the COVID-19 pandemic.
The college offers yearly camps for soccer, volleyball and basketball, which local kids are invited to attend. All of these camps will be going ahead this year but will be following COVID guidelines from the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Alberta Health Services and provincial sports authorities.
Lakeland Atheltic Director Alan Rogan says the summer sports programs provide a positive impact for beginner and advanced players.
“It gets kids out and gets them active. It makes sure that they’re healthy and doing something productive, and actually enhancing your skill levels as well. So that’s one thing our camps have always done, even before COVID, is we’re helping kids improve in the sports they have a passion for.”
The camps will see some changes due to these health rules. When it comes to class sizes, normally the volleyball or basketball camps would take in 50 to 60 kids, but now they can only have 30 people at their indoor sessions at a time, including staff and coaches. Organizers are looking at holding outside camps this year, in an effort to allow more players but if camps are indoors, they’ll have to stand firm on this rule. By having these smaller sizes, the camps are working around having to have a mask rule in place.
Rogan explains that parents and kids will be informed on how they can cut down COVID-19 risk during the sign-up process.
“Part of the registration process will be getting information out to the parents about the expectations of parents. You know, once again making sure that their son or daughter doesn’t have COVID symptoms before they come to camp, making sure they’re healthy when they come to camp, and then there’s going to be a bunch of disinfecting protocols.
Registration has been open on Lakeland’s website through the pandemic, but payment was not taken before Lakeland could confirm that the camps would go ahead. A basketball soccer hybrid camp begins Monday, August 10th, while a basketball-only camp begins August 17th.
Two volleyball camps, one for ages 11 to 14 and one for ages 15-18 begin on August 24th and 28th, respectively.