Starting today, Monday November 9, the Leelanau Outdoor Center (LOC) is offering a program for local students who are attending school virtually “to come and do their individual online schoolwork, while also being able to do fun, outdoor camp activities when the school day is done,” according to the camp’s website.

Katie Duntley, Director at LOC says they are currently offering open enrollment for 3rd through 8th graders who are doing virtual learning and are enrolled in the General Education program at their school. LOC is “offering a COVID careful space for twenty students who will move around in small groups of varying sizes depending on age group and activity.”

The LOC Classroom is available Monday through Friday, and students can be enrolled for a full week or individual days.

“Normally we have school groups coming for camp activities in the fall, and typically we shut down in November and December,” she says. “We have decided to offer the LOC Classroom Program in this timeframe and will continue to offer it — at minimum — until spring break.”

She adds that LOC staff will also be enforcing strict protocols for health screening, distancing, disinfecting, facial coverings, and other important measures for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19. (Read the outdoor center’s COVID-19 policies here.) 

A staff member is present to offer technical assistance while students are doing their virtual learning, and a set bus route (with stops in Glen Abor, Empire, Cedar and Maple City) is also available.

Explains Duntley, “Originally when we floated this idea past guidance counselors, transportation was the top need they anticipated. We have camp busses, so we thought, ‘why not pick up students in the surrounding communities?’”

The cost per student is $42/day or $200/week (with lunch and morning snack included) and financial aid is available. 

LOC was established in 1994 in collaboration with local school teachers who saw a need for quality outdoor and character education. Typically, 3,000 students from across Michigan attend LOC programs each year. The camp property rests on Pyramid Point, overlooking Lake Michigan. It is surrounded to the north, south and east by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.