The canoe’s and soccer fields may be empty right now, but in a few months, hundreds of kids will spend their summer at Camp Chingachgook in Lake George.

The YMCA sleep-away camp will look a bit different this year, after having to shut down last summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So last summer in 2020 was actually only the second time in the camp’s history that we had to close; the last time was for the Great Depression,” says Camp Chingachgook Executive Director Jine Andreozzi.

Andreozzi says she’s still waiting on more specific guidelines from the state, but right now, the camp will be at 50% capacity, splitting up meal times and requiring negative test results from campers and staff before each session starts.

“So we typically do some off-camp trips. We’ve decided not to do those this year, so we’ll still having hiking programs, but it will just be on our property so we aren’t really interfacing with the public, and it’s just our camp bubble,” Andreozzi said.

Camp Chingachgook is also making history this year. In the 108 years the camp’s been running, it finally has its first female executive director in Andreozzi. Now she is part of the camp’s history, which she says has been a goal of hers ever since she was a camper there.

“It really hit me on how big of a deal this was for everyone in the camp community,” she said, “and I was so humbled and excited to hear parents give us feedback that they were glad to have me as a role model in this position, not only for all their campers, but for their daughters especially.”