SCRAPPY CAMPERS
Dad to the rescue! Father of two saves summer by creating his own sleep-away camp for his teen daughters and their pals
An enterprising Manhattan dad of two bored teenage girls is playing cabin leader this summer — at a sleep-away camp he dreamed up for his daughters and 10 of their pals.
Forbes editor Randall Lane, 52, decided to launch the four-week camp in the Catskills after going through lockdown with his daughters Chloe, 13, and Sabrina, 16.
He wanted to “let them be kids again,” he said.
To house the camp, he rented a massive lakeside ski chalet with “bunk beds and trundle beds galore” at the foot of Hunter Mountain.
“I bought a bunch of cereal dispensers, and lunch is do-it-yourself,” said the divorced West Village dad, who created a curriculum packed with math lessons, cooking competitions, talent shows, arts and crafts, and movie nights complete with a popcorn machine.
To attend, the girls had to show up with a negative COVID-19 test and quarantine after getting swabbed.
“The idea was to split the cost and do it like a co-op, which makes this one of the cheapest sleep-away camps ever,” said Lane. “And since we all are quarantined together, it’s the safest.”
Each girl’s family paid $2,000 for the monthlong adventure.
All the attendees also signed a “code of conduct,” which outlined basic rules, such as “be respectful of the house and the property of others.” Other mandates were a bit more controversial, especially: “happily hand over my cellphone and computer.”
The teens eventually wore Lane down to a six-day-a-week no-phone policy, with Sundays reserved for screen time, before the weekly bonfire and talent show.
“Sunday is the day I go play golf, and they can do their TikTok posts or call their parents or grandparents,” said Lane.
There’s a strict 8:30 a.m. wake-up time and, in addition to all the fun and games, three hours of math work daily.
“As a girl dad, it was super-important to me that these girls know that they’re great at math,” said Lane, who hired a public school teacher via Craigslist to tutor the group.
Remote learning, he added, had made it “clear that these kids were falling behind, so this is a way to catch them up.”
Lane also hired the teacher’s boyfriend, who used to run university orientation at Ithaca College, to serve as the camp’s activities director. “As part of the deal, he had to get Red Cross training and bring up a kit,” said Lane.
It may sound like strict summer school, but the girls are loving it.
“I think the structure is really fun,” said Paloma Rao-Audette, 14. “I feel like I’ll be prepped for school, but we also have the freedom to swim and play volleyball — all the stuff we missed out on when school ended.”
The older girls have math in the morning, while the younger ones do activities before the groups switch in the afternoon. There’s always a family dinner, while lunch generally consists of smoothies and salads that the girls cobble together.
“I’ve never seen more avocados decimated. They go through like 10 a day,” said Lane, a former restaurant critic for Time Out New York.
The girls even competed in a “Chopped”-style cooking contest.
“The ingredients were peppermint Life Savers, red cabbage, shrimp and strawberries,” said Lane, who judged the dishes along with the camp’s math tutor and activities director. “The winning dish incorporated all of them. They made a peppermint strawberry glaze over shrimp with a slaw in tacos. I was very impressed.”
Lane is less impressed with the young ladies’ movie picks.
“I’m trying to do classic camp movies, like ‘Meatballs’ or ‘Wet Hot American Summer,’ ” said Lane. “They want to watch ‘Titanic.’ ” But there’s one rule he won’t bend.
“No boys allowed was the rule since the beginning,” said Lane. “We have enough going on here.”