Backyard Camp Faces: Mark Silver
Founder of Backyard Camp Insiders: an email newsletter that provides educational-based activities for children and advice from parenting and education experts.
As a father of 3, technology executive and faculty at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, Mark Silver already wears many hats. So it may seem surprising that Silver decided to don another by co-founding a camp program for kids. For Silver, though, his decision hinged more on necessity than choice.
When the Coronavirus pandemic took hold this spring, Silver anticipated that the activities his kids looked forward to this summer would be cancelled. That's when Mark and his sister-in-law, Backyard Camp co-founder, Erin Elfassy, hatched a plan for parents to re-create a camp-like experience at home. "Between Erin's background working in the school system and my experience in digital media, we put a back-of-the-napkin plan in place," says Silver, who describes camp as "in his DNA," having spent his summers as a youth at Camp Northland in Haliburton, Ontario.
Backyard Camp Comes to Life
The pair's plan to keep kids busy and relieve parent stress this summer has now become a full-time, volunteer-based operation, centred around Backyard Camp's free daily email newsletter that provides parents and caregivers with activities to engage in with their children at home. Mark's sister, Lisa Silver, has also played a critical role by promoting activities on the organization's Facebook page. Mark's life-long friend, Perry Schwartz, has also turned the initiative into a media darling.
In the background, Silver's company Ready Set Go and business partner Dayton Pereira provide the no-code technology that powers the Backyard Camp website, email newsletters and subscriber management. When parents sign up for the daily newsletter, they share their children's' preferred activities, which are matched with daily programs throughout the summer.
Silver now spends much of his time collaborating with volunteers Emily Ross and Dave Carpenter, members of Silver's team while working on the London Olympics project in 2012 with CTV, to create content and partner promotions for the 1,000s of families who count on the daily program. Those partners include Bell Media's CP24, who have carved out a weekly Backyard Camp segment on their Monday breakfast broadcast. Indigo Books & Music, Super Toys, Canadian Tire and esports team owner OverActive Media provide promotional support for Backyard Camp as well. "What we're most proud of, though, is our support of Kids Help Phone," Silver says. "We're trying to raise funds through partnerships with the cash-back fundraising platform FlipGive and the esports league management platform Mission Control."
Dedication of Volunteers Makes All The Difference
Silver also acts as the general manager of the initiative, organizing the dozen or so volunteers who support Backyard Camp. So far so good, says Silver. "We have an incredible team of volunteers with very high standards. Our whole model is remote and digital, so tools like Zoom and Slack also come in handy to keep us all organized and communicating. We're now on our 4th week of camp, and things are humming."
Back in May, Silver received positive feedback from many parents on the program's concept, as well as from the media and influencers that include acclaimed Canadian parenting expert Alyson Schafer. "At the end of the day, we're filling a programming gap for parents with suggestions to help keep their kids busy and happy". For Silver, that's the reward. "I didn't get this involved for recognition," he says. "Backyard Camp is all about doing what's necessary at an unprecedented time in our lives where people need to step up to support one another."
Backyard Camp focuses on safe, educational-based activities for your children, advice from parenting and education experts, as well as products and gift ideas for kids from our partners. Find out more at www.backyardcamp.ca .