A sign and trail map can be seen at the entrance to Fischer’s Park in Towamencin in fall 2022.
A familiar user could come to Towamencin’s Fischer’s Park as soon as next summer.
Township officials heard a preview earlier this month about a new summer camp being proposed by the North Penn YMCA, to use part of the park starting in 2024.
"Our proposal is to bring camp back to Fischer’s Park,” said North Penn Y CEO Bob Gallagher.
"We believe that we can provide a camp program that’s an affordable option for working parents, a positive life experience for kids, and really good use of a township resource,” he said.
Located off of Kriebel Road, Fischer’s Park is 77 acres of woodlands, ballfields and trails in a park featuring five pavilions, two playgrounds, bocce courts, a fishing pier, and the Arneth Entertainment Center, named for a longtime resident who bequeathed a fund that goes toward upgrades for the park.
In 2021 the township adopted a new parks master plan spelling out possible upgrades there and throughout the township, and parts of the park have been used as farmland, a resident discussed holding a daylong multicultural festival there in 2021 into ’22, and a resident added an ‘Insect Hotel’ to the park earlier this year.
During the township supervisors meeting on Oct. 11, Gallagher and Y Lansdale branch executive Bob Varga said they’d like the board to consider the local branch hosting a camp for roughly 50 kids, using one or more of the park’s pavilions. The Y branch started running a summer camp in Hatfield Township starting in 2022, Gallagher told the board, and runs similar camps in cooperation with the North Penn and Souderton Area school districts, with Lansdale Catholic High School and with Advanced Living Communities.
"Fischer’s Park and the YMCA actually go back to the 1960s. We actually offered camp there, and I have board members now that graduated from summer camp, I have staff that went to summer camp at Fischer’s Park. And that was a key part of the community back then,” he said.
Arneth family members have also served on the Y’s board of directors, he added, and the YMCA helped operate the park back in the 1980s, with the Y using part of a bequeathal from the Arneth family for their North Penn Commons project on East Main Street in Lansdale. The national Y organization is the largest child care provider in the country, Gallagher told the board, with background checks that involve fingerprinting and meet state requirements, and staff at several branches that could work the camp if needed.
"Camp at Fischer’s Park would be totally modeled after camp we ran this summer at Hatfield’s School Road Park: same dates, ages, fees, ratios, we would provide a discount for township residents like we do in Hatfield for Hatfield residents,” and with scholarships available for those with financial needs, he said.
Y officials are proposing the camp be based at the park’s "Bullpen Pavilion,” just left of the park driveway leading off of Bustard Road, and a pickup and drop-off area would use the existing parking lots there. About five staff would handle the pickup and drop-off area, and the roughly 50 kids would attend a mix of three- and five-day-a-week camps, Gallagher and Varga told the board.
"We’re going to put them into groups, 10 in each group, so they’ll be in different spots. We’ll have five staff, one supervisor there, so we’re looking at a one-to-ten ratio of staff to kids,” Varga said.
Kids in the camp would use the park for hiking, nature walks, board games below the pavilion, and could do performances at the park pavilion or play sports on the fields, he added. Y camps also run summer field trips, using buses that would pick up and drop off from the park, and could also take trips to the township pool complex on Weikel Road, he said.
Supervisor Joyce Snyder asked if the Y would use more than just the one pavilion, and Varga said Hatfield’s program "seemed to work fine” with only one pavilion.
"We didn’t really want to not have the other facilities available for residents. We wanted to be the least impactful at the park: one pavilion for pickup, drop-off, board games, fields for kickball and outdoor activities, bird watching, hiking, maybe fishing, I think there’s fishing there?” he said, and Snyder replied: "There’s 100 percent fishing there.”
Supervisor Laura Smith joked that she’d like to attend the camp herself, and Gallagher noted that one of the slides in his presentation included a photo of Chuck Wilson, now the board chairman, as a camper at the park decades ago.
"It was a very good experience. But back in those days, you could do other things that aren’t allowed today: BB guns, archery, boating,” Wilson said, and Gallagher replied that none of those would be allowed today.
Snyder then asked township Manager David Kraynik if the township pool complex could handle 50 additional kids, and the manager said it would, with Varga saying the trips would be done in two trips of 25. Supervisor Rich Marino asked what would happen on rain days, and Gallagher said the camp would likely still be held under the pavilion, and camp days could be cancelled if weather is severe.
Supervisor Kristin Warner said she knows a resident who’s "very into bird watching,” and said she’s taken multiple walks through Fischer’s on tours with him; Gallagher joked, "Does he want a job? Summer camp counselor?” and said they’d be in contact.
Wilson then asked for a board consensus, and said the supervisors could direct staff to draft a formal agreement with the Y allowing the organization to use the park for summer 2024; the board voted unanimously to do so.
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