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ABOUT OUR CAMP
Twilight Park Day Camp, a tax exempt non-profit day camp located in Twilight Park, Haines Falls, N.Y., offers a nurturing environment for children ages 3-15, with an emphasis on outdoor skills. We love to take children hiking and camping in our magnificent surroundings. But every day is packed with all kinds of fun. Activities range from swimming, tennis, archery, gaga, kayaking, and other sports to arts and crafts, drama, yoga, cooking, music, and field trips. Twilight Park Day Camp encourages campers to try new things and to make new friends.
Supervision is provided by experienced, adult educators and camp professionals, who are assisted by teenage counselors.
Twilight Park Day Camp 2024
Twilight Park Day Camp 2024 offers four programs to meet the needs of each age group.
Our Campers and Teen Programs are for ages 3 to 15. Some spaces in the camp are reserved for Twilight Park residents, renters and house guests.
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Age 3 & 4 may register for the half day program (must be potty trained).
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Age 5 to 12 may register for the full day camper program.
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Age 13 & 14 may register for our Leader in Training program. Age 12 turning 13 in 2024 with Camp Director permission may register for the LIT program.
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Age 14 & 15 may register for the Counselor in Training Program. This program also requires an application completed by the teen, an interview and a 3-4 week commitment.
TPDC 2024 Weekly sessions run July 1 through August 16 and campers must enroll for at least two weeks.
TPDC follows all local and state day-camp health and safety procedures. Government protocols change frequently and we will share specifics with parents in the months before camp.
Campers and staff must have all age-appropriate vaccinations including the COVID-19
vaccine for age 5 and older.
TWILIGHT PARK HISTORY
Our mountaintop paradise in the northern Catskills was founded in 1888 as a summer community for city dwellers seeking to escape the urban heat. For well over 125 years, families have returned to the breathtaking natural beauty and the warm, cozy cottages for a sense of serenity and fellowship difficult to find anywhere else in the world.
Twilight Park was born out of a downtown Manhattan social club in the late-19th century. The Twilight Club met fortnightly at the St. Denis Hotel at Broadway and E. 11th Street. It was a spirited gathering of New Yorkers discussing the issues of the day, full of journalists and educators, artists and businessmen.
This same inclusive spirit of free-thought and creative expression informed the founding of the Park, when our founder, and leading member of the Twilight Club, Charles Wingate, traveled to the mountaintop in 1887. Enamored by the natural beauty, he arranged for the purchase of a former sheep’s meadow and led the construction of the first cluster of cottages through the late 1880s and 1890s.
His guiding ethos for the Park he founded was “To cultivate good fellowship and enjoy rational recreation” — principles that continue to guide the Park to this day.
One of the first things you may notice as you enter Twilight Park is a plaque that says;
“In memory of Charles Wingate the founder of Twilight Park and a lover of little children”.
This symbolizes the beginning of a long tradition of loving, protecting and caring for children in this special place on our mountain top going back to the late 1800’s.
Evidence of a formalized children’s camps in Twilight Park date to the 1930s and our older residents have fond memories of a camp that included the traditional activities of swimming, tennis, hiking and arts and crafts. But also included needed skills of the times including sewing, knitting and playing bridge.
The current Twilight Park Camp became a certified New York State Children’s Camp in 2013, was incorporated in New York State in 2014, and became a tax exempt not for profit 501c.3 organization in 2015.
Today Twilight Park Camp Inc. offers a robust traditional day camp program open to the children of Twilight Park and surrounding areas and rents facilities from the wonderful and gracious Twilight Park community.
OUR GREAT PARK
Twilight Cottagers take great pride in the long and rich history of the park. Our archives and historic photo collections inspire fascination and intrigue. Some homes have been passed down from generation to generation. A childhood in Twilight promises life-long friendships, even friendships passed from one generation to the next. Two stunning waterfalls – Haines Falls and Santa Cruz Falls – sit within the residential area of the Park. In addition to trails spread throughout Twilight, the Park connects directly to Kaaterskill High Peak trail, and the hundreds of miles of adjoining Catskills trails. Twilight Park is surrounded with beautiful nature, stunning sunsets, and rich history.
