Sonoma County’s Camp Newman reopens four years after devastating Tubbs fire

On an overnight hike in the wooded Mayacamas Mountains, Ellie Wedner bedded down under the stars with nothing but a tarp between her and the rocky ground — and treasured the experience.

“I still got at least four hours of sleep,” said the 13-year-old middle schooler from Los Altos. “I love the overnight.”

Wedner is one of about 700 youths, ages eight to 18, returning this summer — after a three-year absence — to Camp Newman, a 485-acre tract on Porter Creek Road north of Santa Rosa, partially reborn from the ashes of the Tubbs fire of 2017.

Like many of the more than 25,000 campers who have come there since 1997, she’s a regular with seven summers of song, sport, kinship and serious reflection in a bucolic setting that still bears scars from the firestorm, with blackened trees dotting the hillsides.

“It’s a really great place to explore your Judaism,” Wedner said, “It’s a safe place.”

Camp Newman is a haven for Jewish youth who belong to less than 3% of America’s population and are immersed in a culture that worships largely on Sundays. At camp, they dress in white and dance energetically in the courtyard during Friday night Shabbat celebrations.

“I like the friendly faces,” said Clea Hansen, 17, an incoming high school senior from Lafayette in her ninth season at camp. “It’s community. I like the spirit of camp. How proud everybody is to come every year.”

Hansen, who will work as a counselor next year and live in a cabin with about a dozen campers, said the place “feels like a family.”

But Camp Newman’s normalcy took a hit from the Tubbs fire, which destroyed more than 4,600 North Bay homes and incinerated 81 of the camp’s 90 structures following its 2017 season.

The flames parted around a large wooden six-pointed Star of David placed by campers on a slope overlooking the heart of the camp.

Sessions were held in 2018 and 2019 at the Cal Maritime Academy in Vallejo and a virtual camp, called “Zoomin’ with Newman,” last summer.

Just a third of the way through rebuilding at a cost of $40 million so far, the camp reopened in June at partial capacity and is “sold out to the brim,” said Ari Vared, the executive director.

“I think everyone needed a sense of kindness and community,” he said. “People want to be here.”

Vared, a camper at the first session in 1997, has participated as a camper for 10 summers and staff member for 15 summers, including the last two as director. He met and also married his wife, Sarah Vared, at the camp where both were counselors.

Camp Newman began on the shores of Lake Tahoe in 1947 and moved to Santa Clara County before settling on the site formerly occupied by the culinary academy for the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards.

But coming out of the COVID shutdown required special considerations because children under 12 are not approved for vaccinations, Vared said.

In consultation with experts, the camp created a “bubble,” he said, requiring a 10- to 14-day quarantine for all incoming campers and a PCR test — considered the most reliable for detecting a coronavirus infection — within 72 hours of their arrival.

On arrival, campers receive a rapid test, which is repeated on their third and sixth day in camp, and administered to “anyone who coughs a certain way,” Vared said.

There are no field trips or family visits and none of the adult staff, numbering about 125, can leave during the season, which runs through mid-August. Everyone wears a mask, except during meals, and there are one or two physicians and several nurses on the premises at all times.

“It’s a nice escape from the stress back home,” said Lily Matalon, 16, an incoming junior at Montgomery High School in her eighth year at Camp Newman.

“I know camp will be a place where I can hang out with my friends,” she said, calling it a relief after the isolation imposed by the pandemic.

“There’s always something happening,” Matalon said, admitting that sometimes over a summer at home “there’s TV and not much else.”

Attractions at Camp Newman include a waterslide, archery, soccer, basketball, martial arts, art, a 50-foot climbing structure called Adventure Mountain and Frisbee tossing so intense that some camp graduates have gone on to play ultimate Frisbee as professionals.

Camp Newman’s rebuilding has been as meticulous as the COVID protocols, with every step guided by a 100-page report by Joe McBride, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus in environmental design.

The results so far include a two-story, 6,600-square-foot Community Center and a dining hall that can seat 500 people inside and 200 outside, both with cement siding, metal roofs and outdoor and indoor sprinklers.

State grants totaling $10 million and about $30 million in insurance payments have paid for the work to date, which has included about $1 million in wildfire fuel reduction, now an ongoing operation, Vared said.

The total rebuilding cost will be about $100 million, and it is proceeding as fundraising provides the additional $60 million.

Camp Newman is more than fun and games, with religious education themed this summer on “Holy Spaces” and considering “what makes camp so special,” said Morgan Folger, the education director.

There’s a campwide one- to two-hour session every morning, along with Shabbat services Friday night and Saturday morning.

“We’re allowing campers to connect with Judaism in their own different ways,” said Folger, a former camper who is youth coordinator at Santa Rosa’s Congregation Shomrei Torah the rest of the year.

In a social justice and advocacy program, ninth and 10th-grade campers conducted a Zoom lobbying session with Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, and Orinda Democrat and Camp Newman alumna.

The state lawmaker assured campers she supported a measure called the “Time Done” bill that would seal the criminal records of people who have served their sentences, eliminating a potential barrier to employment, housing and education, Folger said.

Vared, whose childhood and adult life have revolved around Camp Newman, called the reopening “pure magic.”

The arch over the camp entrance, on the side seen by those departing, says “May you be blessed as you go on your way.”

Ongoing wildfires and the pandemic have made for “a lot of tough moments since 2017,” Vared said. “Being back it just feels a little more whole. It’s a reminder of what the world can be.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.