Winter Camps for Youngsters Are a Hot Commodity This Year

By the time Steven Vranau returns to school in January, he’ll probably be ready for a vacation.

That’s because the 10-year-old from Simi Valley will spend his two-week school vacation roller-blading, caroling, visiting needy families, playing computer games and making scads of seasonal crafts and treats at a winter camp, an increasingly popular child-care alternative during the holiday season.

While the term “winter camp” conjures images of children frolicking in snowdrifts, telling ghost stories around a campfire or bedding down in log cabins, they are actually indoor programs for school-age children run by community agencies, churches, city and county recreation departments, day-care facilities and some companies for their employees’ children.

Winter camps typically run from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. weekdays. Camp fees vary widely--from $10 for two weeks at Boys and Girls Clubs to $90 a week at the West Valley YMCA to $175 for seven days through the Calabasas Community Services Department.

To close the child-care gap during the holiday break, working parents usually take vacation days, work from home, swap baby-sitting favors with friends and relatives or make other imaginative arrangements. Winter camps make the season a little less frenetic by providing one place where parents can take their children.

In Steven’s case, instead of vegging out on the sofa watching videos and playing computer games, he’ll be baking pizza and pretzels, fashioning New Year’s Eve party hats, stringing beads, listening to CDs or curling up on a futon with a book at the winter camp run by Children’s World Learning Center in Simi Valley.

“It’s fun for him to be around other kids as opposed to being alone,” said Sue Vranau, Steven’s mother and an underwriter for a health insurance company. “They keep them busy, and not just with mundane activities; there are special activities based on holiday themes.”

Children’s World Learning Center, based in Golden, Colo., runs a variety of day-care and after-school care programs. This is the first year it has offered winter camps at all 575 of its centers nationwide. Last year, the special session was test-marketed at centers in a handful of cities, including Los Angeles.

A drop in enrollment during the holiday break prompted corporate executives to ask parents why they were pulling their children out of the centers a few days before Christmas and then re-enrolling them in the new year.

“The parents said they were looking for a program . . . that was geared more toward the holidays,” said Whitney Gillman, assistant manager of media relations.

Depending on the location of the center, Children’s World winter campers participate in myriad activities ranging from ice fishing, sledding and skiing to stringing popcorn, pulling taffy and cooking potato latkes.

Because this is first year winter camps are being offered at centers nationwide, Children’s World executives will have to wait until the session ends to measure its success. Some 94% of parents who sent their children to the trial winter camp last year indicated they would re-enroll their children this year, Gillman said.

Another child-care center, Children’s Wonderland, has operated winter camps at its child-care centers in Agoura, Woodland Hills, Oxnard, Sacramento and West Haven, Conn., for the last three years.

“There is a greater awareness among parents about the safety of latch-key children,” said Debby Bitticks, chief executive officer of Children’s Wonderland, explaining the 50% increase in enrollment since the camps were launched in 1994. “Parents don’t want to leave their children home alone anymore. They want to keep them in a safe environment.”

Michelle Mazzulo, area manager for KinderCare Learning Centers, which operates 100 centers in California (20 in Los Angeles County), agrees.

“In the past, we tried big field trips, but parents told us they wanted their children close to the center and to leave the big trips for them,” she said. “They didn’t want to worry about their kids being out on the road.”

At the KinderCare Learning Center in Torrance, children ages 5 to 12 who are enrolled in the center’s Clubmate program will spend their school vacation making holiday crafts, ice skating and going to the movies.

Director Laura Wilson said demand for the winter camp was strong this holiday season, noting that the 24 available spaces were filled early.