JACKSON COUNTY, W.Va. — It’s a different kind of summer at Cedar Lakes Conference Center, a retreat and event site in Jackson County.
“We’re usually full from April through November and everything’s been canceled up through, so far, to July,” said Karen Facemyer, Cedar Lakes director.
Aside from a group of American Electric Power employees working on outages in late March or early April, Facemyer said no groups had been on site since January.
Closures for the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest in March.
Because of ongoing virus concerns, the state Department of Environmental Protection canceled the 2020 Junior Conservation Camp, an event that dates back to 1981, for June.
Also canceled was the Mountain State Art and Craft Fair in July.
“It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t worried,” Facemyer said about the current financial status of Cedar Lakes.
Facemyer said she was hoping Governor Jim Justice would include Cedar Lakes in any distributions of the $1.25 billion in federal dollars allocated to West Virginia to cover fallout expenses from the pandemic.
In normal times, “We get very little money from the state,” Facemyer told MetroNews.
“But because we are owned by a state agency, the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, we do not qualify for a lot of the PPP loans and things like that (for small businesses).”
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program was created as a forgivable loan program to help small businesses continue to operate.
All temporary workers at Cedar Lakes, more than half of the entire workforce there, have been laid off.
Fifteen full-time workers remain on staff.
While the facility was closed to the public, those employees worked to remodel and update dorm rooms and hotel rooms and made improvements to walkways.
Measures to encourage social distancing were also installed.
On May 18, Cedar Lakes reopened for walking, hiking and fishing. Mini golf was available along with paddle boats.
“It’s not desolate, but we definitely need our groups to come back as soon as possible,” Facemyer said.
There were plans for a drive-in movie area for local residents this summer.
Band camps were still scheduled for West Virginia groups, as of Thursday, but groups from Kentucky and Ohio had canceled.
It was going to be August, at the earliest, before the Road Scholar Retreats at Cedar Lakes were to resume.
“Can we recover from this? Most definitely. We’ve had tough times here before and the staff here is second to none. They just jump right in and make sure things get done,” Facemyer said.
“I think we’ll see how the next month or two goes and then, hopefully, everything will start picking back up.”