Summer Camp - How to Send a Press Release

When I was growing up in Chester, summer camp was a 6 week program at the Central YMCA. These days, there are more 1 and 2 week camps around town and if a parent can cleverly string a few together, you may be able to keep a child active all summer. 

A lot of camps have a purpose, like computer camp, band camp, football camp, and there are camps where kids go to have fun for the summer and participate in all types of activities (like we had at the Y). Most camps employ teenagers for the summer which works out great for the younger and older children.

How does a parent find out about the summer camps in their area? 

Based on the responses posted on this blog, several people suggest that you take a visit to city hall or call PAL. Maybe you visit the library or contact all the churches. There’s got to be an easier way. 

Delaware County 4-H always sends me their camp activities in an email press release. It only takes seconds for me to open the email and copy it to a blog post for all of you to see. It doesn’t cost them anything to send or to have me post. It gives a complete description of the program with dates, costs and contact information. Once on the blog, it’s permanently available for everyone to view forever.  

Click HERE for their most recent summer camp info.

As simple as that process is, most Chester organizations haven’t caught on. Crozer library sends email press releases with a lot of detail which are easy to post but the few other organizations I get info from send an email with a flyer either attached or embedded. The flyers are in any number of formats, sizes, shapes, and colors and usually require me to rewrite the information before posting. But at least they are sending something.

Unfortunately, most organizations are not using this FREE service to communicate their programs using any method...email, mail, or phone. 

One anonymous responder implies that if summer camp and summer job information is going to get in this blog it’s up to me to go visit city hall, PAL, and all the churches and social organizations that may be having a program. I simply don’t have that kind of time to visit all those places and if I did, most of them would be handing me a flyer which I would have to come back and either put on a scanner or write a few paragraphs to interpret the program for the blog.

Every flyer that Brian Warren of PAL sends me gets posted on this blog: golf day, football camp, soap box derby, wing eating contest, father daughter / mother son dances, All Pro, etc. If there is more going on at PAL than he has not sent, is it my fault it’s not being presented here? He did send a Word document of the PAL calendar for the summer. I haven’t taken the time to reformat the file to work on this blog. (I will put it up today as-is just in case it can help somebody but I wish there was more detail). 

If the City of Chester has programs that I can only find out about by going to city hall and searching for a flyer, they probably won’t get mentioned here because they are closed when I get off of work. 

It’s up to the readers of this blog to go to your churches and other agencies that you know are having summer camps and summer jobs and telling those people to send the information here for me to post.  Share the information below on How to Send a Press Release with them.

How to Send a Press Release

Organizations that print flyers need to place them in high traffic areas like stores and gas stations to get them in the hands of people directly. 


However, flyers are normally not the best way to communicate your program to the press. The press prefers a press release. For me, it doesn’t have to be anything more than a simple email with a few paragraphs explaining the program with all the necessary details. If you need to send photos, logos and other graphic, attach those files separately. All the attachments should be sent at the same time in one email message. 

The Delaware County 4-H blog post reference above is a perfect press release format to follow.  City of Chester department heads should follow the press release format Emily Harris uses.