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Ithaca Youth Bureau Cancels Summer Programs

IthacaYouthBureau-web

ITHACA, NY (WSKG) - The Ithaca Youth Bureau has canceled it’s summer programs because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bureau is a department of the City of Ithaca and the decision to cancel the youth programs came after a furlough of 90 percent of the bureau’s staff.

It's recreation department offers over a dozen programs to children ages five through 18 throughout the year. In the summer, that includes jobs, swim lessons, camps, and college prep programs.

Liz Klohmann, director of the Ithaca Youth Bureau, said their staff usually grows to around 400 for their summer programs.

"It takes months and months and months to put together our camps and lessons and youth employment locations," Klohmann said.

In a regular summer up to a thousand kids from across Tompkins County participate in the summer programs.

"We need enough time to develop the programs, hire the people, do all the behind-the-scenes work that's entailed with running summer programming," Klohmann said.

There’s little that could happen to make the summer programs possible, according to Klohmann. She said Ithaca needs more federal funding to recover from the pandemic.