The organization exists exclusively for charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes, including for such, raising the professionalism of religious, educational and charitable residential jewish summer camps.

Children & Youth , Youth Development Programs

The association of independent jewish camps (aijc) top three program services for the 2017 fiscal year are as follows:1. The aijc was designed to help jewish summer camps address needs within the operations of an independent jewish camp. This past year, the aijc held workshops in two key areas of focus: food service and hebrew and religious song leading. In march of 2017, the aijc partnered with h and h purchasing and the humane society, through a grant, to delivered a two-day workshop for camp food service staff and dining hall managers. Much of the content during the workshop involved allergies and special meals as there has been a sharp increase in the number of campers and staff who are coming to camp with food allergies and special meal needs. Member camps sent over 30 staff members to one of the aijc members facility to learn from the subject matter experts from h and h purchasing and the humane society and to learning from each other. In may of 2017, the aijc partnered with the jewish community centers association and bbyo, a jewish youth movement, to conduct two-day workshops for hebrew and religious song leading. The three organizations hired four faculty members to lead and teach the content during the two-day workshop. The participants learned how to add music to a shabbat service and learned many of the hebrew songs across the spectrum of judaism. 2. The aijc now conducts six different professional cohorts across the full and part-time staff of the aijc members. All of the cohorts are conducted via videoconferences each month during the non-camp season. The videoconferences last 60 minutes and include a 30-minute presentation from subject matter experts and 30 minutes of sharing amongst the participants. In many situations, the cohorts have surfaced wider issues and challenges, which required further resources and time. To address this, the aijc has created a few webinar series to provide further depth to some of the larger challenges. Subject matter experts in the specific areas lead the webinars, which allows for more time and discussion. The aijc will continue to expand the cohort offerings based on the needs of the members. We have already identified two additional areas for seasonal cohorts for medical staff and chair/presidents of the boards of directors. 3. Last year the aijc expanded the membership to 16 camps and has engaged several foundations to help subsidize the aijc membership fee for some of the smaller camps in the jewish communal field. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2018, the aijc has added two additional camps to bring the total number to 18 members. One of the goals that were achieved in 2017 was to maintain the membership without any attrition, which shows that the aijc is meeting the needs of the membership. Having built a critical mass of members and subsequently full and part time staff of the member camps, the aijc conducted its own two-day conference in october of 2017. Over 25 full-time staff members participated in two days of learning and sharing. There were presentations, meetings with partner organizations and speakers in areas such as professional development, design thinking and staff curricula. The aijc plans to expand the conference opportunities based on some of the key cohorts in 2018.