Kentucky Airbnb Farm Became Home to New Teen Girls Camp

By COLlive reporter

Many camps got canceled this summer due to COVID 19, however, this one was born.

The Gan Izzy Teen Camp Experience, a 3-week experience for girls entering high school through 11th grade, was founded by Shluchim and veteran Camp Directors Rabbi Mendy and Tzippy Weiss.

For its inaugural year, 30 girls are joined by 5 amazing counselors and Rabbi Mendy and Tzippy Weiss, who created the camp in under 6 weeks due to great necessity, “through many miracles and a trip to the Ohel,” Tzippy Weiss told COLlive.

This summer, the camp is located on a farm in Kentucky, which is usually rented out as an Airbnb bed and breakfast for 30-40 people.

“We decided to make a deal and rent it for 3 whole weeks,” Tzippy Weiss says. “The owners agreed and the deal was done.”

Weiss says she has wanted to create a Teen Camp experience for a long time now, envisioning an exciting and exclusive 3-4 week experience for High School girls, which would take place in a different state each summer. The girls would spend their time in camp exploring that state, doing the local activities, and elevating the area ‘Gan Yisroel style.’

“With so many High School girls having their plans canceled this summer and left with nothing to do, I thought to myself that this is the perfect time for what I had always wanted to create,” she says.

Although with COVID 19, there were many challenges to start a new camp, “I knew the Rebbe would help,” Weiss says.

“From the planning to the ultimate arrival of the girls, there were definitely some bumps in the road -but we did it,” she says.

The first few days were absolutely amazing, the campers report.

The girls have been blossoming and while living the real country life with chickens, cows and goats, while in the atmosphere of the Rebbe’s Gan Yisroel.

The camp is being run with the help of a group of devoted counselors: Bracha Barber, Dini Heiman, Mushka Rivkin, Bassie Pruss and Nechama Weiss, and talented cook Rivky Kanelsky.

“Definite good has come out of these crazy times,” Tzippy Weiss says. “Gan Izzy Teen Camp Experience is definitely in the plans for next summer.”