Photo Courtesy of AMSkier/From left, Henry M. Skier, president of AMSkier presents the Caring for Children Award to Carole Domsky, wife of camp founder Marvin Domsky, their son Sam Domsky, and Andrew Yankowitz, director and owner of Tall Pines Day Camp in Monroe Township.
HAWLEY, PA – Margate resident Marvin Domsky, the late founder of one of South Jersey’s most renowned day camps, Tall Pines Day Camp, which still transports Margate children to camp each weekend during summer, was posthumously honored with AMSkier Insurance company’s prestious “Caring for Children” award.
Following a lifetime of dedication creating, owning and directing camps for children and young adults, Domsky, the founder and developer of the former Willow Grove and Tall Pines Day Camps in Williamstown, was recognized for his dedication to providing a safe environment for thousands of children and young adults.
A 1952 graduate of West Chester University (formerly West Chester State Teachers College) and physical education teacher at Germantown High School in Philadelphia, Domsky achieved his dream of owning a camp by buying Willow Grove Day Camp in Hatboro, Pa. For more than 60 years beginning in 1955, Domsky, with the help of his wife Carole, and with the Zeitz family, owned and ran one of the most successful and respected day camps in the Philadelphia area.
“If you were to look in the dictionary under summer camp, Marvin Domsky’s name would be front and center,” said Henry Skier, president of AMSkier Insurance. “His infectious enthusiasm and passion for camp can only be matched by the memories his camps created for countless children and young adults across the Mid-Atlantic and beyond.”
Not content with merely running Willow Grove Day Camp, which closed last year, Domsky identified a campground and chicken farm in Monroe Township, as an optimal site for his next venture, Tall Pines Day Camp. In 1996, Tall Pines Day Camp opened its gates and will celebrate its 25th year in 2020. Thousands of children from across the Delaware Valley have attended Tall Pines Day Camp.
“One of the reasons Tall Pines Camp and Willow Grove Day Camp are, and were, big successes is because people were so drawn to Marvin,” said Andrew Yankowitz, Domsky’s cousin and owner/director of Tall Pines Day Camp. “Today, Tall Pines Day Camp is renowned for being one of the premier day camps in the Delaware Valley with kids coming from Philadelphia, Atlantic, Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties.”
In 2009, Domsky was honored as a “Legend of Camping” by the American Camp Association. He wrote and published two books, “My 65 Years in Camping,” and “The Nitty Gritty of Private Camps Surviving.”
