At Jacob’s Ladder, we are committed to fostering the greatest possible environment for our Climbers and their families, but we believe that public health and safety should be everyone’s top priority. At this time, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), is a global crisis affecting more than 100 countries. A growing number of cases have been identified in and around Virginia.
In order to enable our localities to enact “social distancing” and because our partners at the University of Richmond have cancelled face-to-face programming, we are making the following decisions regarding our upcoming Climber events:
- First, the Senior High Climber event exploring college admissions and financial aid at the University of Richmond, scheduled for March 21, is postponed indefinitely.
- Second, the Spring Retreat Weekend, scheduled for March 27-29, 2020 at Camp Piankatank, is cancelled. We will try to schedule an additional Climber gathering before camp, if the situation improves.
- Third, we are postponing the March 28 Board of Directors meeting until a later date.
- Finally, we will make every attempt to complete new Climber interviews in the community until the situation warrants a change in that policy.
In making this decision we are joining a number of universities, non-profits, corporations, and governmental entities that are limiting non-essential, out-of-area travel and avoiding large gatherings as reasonable precautions to slow the spread of the virus in our communities.
We encourage all our staff, Climbers, and their families to follow the VaDH and CDC webpages listed below.
We are monitoring the situation carefully and will provide further information and updates about how COVID-19 is affecting our work as it becomes available. In the meantime, you can access information from the Virginia Department of Health or the CDC.
Take care of yourselves and your families.
Dr. David H. Niebuhr
Executive Director, Jacob’s Ladder