Camp E-Mailaway

Companies Offer New Ways for Parents To Keep in Touch

When Laura Roy sent her two nieces to summer camp in Southern Maryland, she equipped them with stamps, stationery and pre-addressed envelopes. Two weeks later, the postal service hasn't delivered any letters from them.

Instead, Michelle, 11, and Danielle, 8, have been sending handwritten notes to Roy's e-mail inbox, telling tales of canoe trips and cold showers at Camp St. Charles near Newburg, Md., and she replies with e-mailed messages of her own.

"I don't think I would have received too many through the mail," said Roy, a D.C. resident who was worried that her nieces would be homesick at their first overnight camp. She has printed out all of the letters and plans to keep them forever. "It's a treasure -- something in their own handwriting instead of just a plain old e-mail printed out."

For the past several years, kids have been able to receive e-mails at camp from their parents and other loved ones, often handed out with the regular mail at mealtimes. But technology companies are rolling out new ways for kids to report home, including scanning images of handwritten notes, sending digital photos, and posting live video of kids playing kickball.

While technology can alleviate homesickness for antsy campers -- and lessen anxiety for parents -- some camp enthusiasts warn that such constant contact defeats the independence-boosting spirit of summer camps and keeps kids too plugged in when they should be frolicking outdoors.

Several Internet-based companies provide these features for camps, which often don't have the resources or the know-how to share video or photos online. New York-based Bunk1.com hosts photo galleries, organizes parent e-mails and sends handwritten letters to parents' inboxes. Ecamp.net, owned by Thriva LLC, offers similar services, as well as video messages with webcams. Camp Channel Inc. sets up cameras for online streaming video of camp activities.

Camp Staunton Meadows, a small co-ed summer camp in Clover, Va., posts more than a hundred photos on its Web site for parents to view and print, distributes about 50 parent e-mails to campers, and sends about 30 handwritten replies to parent inboxes with the help of Bunk1.com each day.

"Parents have really enjoyed being to able hear back from campers on the same day," said Andy Adams, the camp's director. "By the time parents get home from work, replies are in their inbox telling them what their camper did this morning or how the ropes course was this afternoon."

However, the system comes with a few challenges. Letters written in pink pen -- a favorite among female campers -- don't scan well, and some of the male campers have to iron the wrinkles out of letters that have been stuffed in pockets.

With a dial-up Internet connection, uploading all of the photos takes some time, but the galleries have been "a huge hit," Adams said. The photos, however, sometimes open the kids up to parental scrutiny.

"We get great calls from parents asking 'Why is my daughter wearing the same shirt she wore yesterday?' and 'My son has a Band-Aid on his elbow -- what happened?' " Adams said.

Many camps are going high-tech, according to the American Camp Association. This year, 82 percent of accredited camps have Web sites and 92 percent have e-mail addresses -- up more than 50 percent from five years ago.