By Jeremy Heersink
Hope Valley Day Camp, located in the Kawartha region of Ontario, is a summer day camp founded by Doug and Marion Robinson—it was started to provide a camp experience to the children who otherwise could not afford to go to a summer camp.
It is run by 50 to 75 volunteer staff, who share a deep concern for the well-being of the community’s local youth. In fact, the camp has run on free-will donations since its inception.
The camp has an outdoor pool that is 10 x 24 m (36 x 80 ft) long, 1.4 m (4.5 ft) deep in the shallow end, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) in the deep end, and contains roughly 450 L (119,000 gal) of water. Up until this last summer, the pool had been lined with a traditional, 28 mil vinyl liner, which is designed for residential pool usage. However, the camp’s pool has heavy bather loads throughout the summer, and as a result, the pool liner had to be replaced regularly. In fact, they were about to install their fourth pool liner when they called the author’s company.
After learning about the pool and its commercial use, the company suggested the camp invest in a longer lasting 60 mil, weld-in-place membrane liner. The thicker membrane is ideal for heavy use in commercial settings and comes with a slip resistant option for specific areas, such as stairs and shallow areas, to prevent slips and falls.
