The new leader of the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust said the organization’s popular Nature Day Camp for kids will be on hiatus this summer, but will return in an improved form next year.
“Our hope is to be back, bigger than ever, in 2026,” said Matt Newberg, the Land Trust’s executive director.
HHLT has hosted the day camp almost every summer since the late 1990s, only taking a break in 2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned in 2021 with 12 weeklong sessions in July and August, six for preschool-age and six for elementary school-age children, and has operated every year since then.
Newberg said the decision to pause the day camp this year was a difficult one. One month after Newberg’s arrival, the Land Trust lost its former camp director, Lindy Magness, during the peak period for camp planning and registration.
The trust’s former operations director, Katie Neal, left to work for the town of Harpswell around the same time, Newberg said. Neal is now the town’s recreation director and community services coordinator.
“The timing was pretty key in determining that it just didn’t feel feasible,” Newberg said about hosting the camp this summer.
Still, he said the news isn’t all bad. HHLT will use the year off to make adjustments to its programming and logistics in order to provide an even better experience for kids starting in 2026.
The Land Trust has received “overwhelming numbers” of applications to fill its vacant camp and operations roles, Newberg said, and it hopes to share information soon about new hires.
“We’ve even come up with some solutions for this summer,” he said. “We’re hoping to make some announcements that I think will really excite people, about youth programming that will be available.”
