Save Camp Aya-Po - Somers, CT

Camp Aya Po was founded about 1922 with support from Samuel P Avery Jr - better known as the benefactor of the Avery Library at Columbia University and the Avery Memorial Wing of Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. The camp was originally a girls away camp - later a coed day camp. It's last operating season was 2009. It is a magnificent complex that still has the potential to function as a camp. Although the YWCA never applied for it to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, there is no question it would qualify. It is probably the most intact WW I vintage summer camp complex - from the first golden age of summer camps - in Connecticut. It is appalling that state money is being used to acquire this land and - before long - to destroy this unique historic resource. There was no news coverage when it closed and apparently no effort to find a new buyer who'd operate it as a camp.

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