Camp Jabberwocky is canceling its summer camp programs, executive director Liza Gallagher announced Friday morning.

“Our medical advisory team and board of trustees carefully considered all available information in order to understand whether we could continue to hold our summer programs, while keeping everyone safe,” Ms. Gallagher wrote in an open letter Friday morning.

“We continue to prioritize the safety of our Jabberwocky/Vineyard community and we believe the risk is just too great.”

Ms. Gallagher cited the impossibility of maintaining strict social distancing policies in the intimate camp environment, where counselors and campers are together around the clock, and the Island’s limited medical resources among the insurmountable obstacles to holding camp this year.

Additionally, she wrote, “Our volunteer medical team of nurses and doctors will be needed, more than ever, in their home hospitals and clinics to care for those affected by Covid-19.”

While the cabins will be empty, the camp has launched a virtual Camp Jabber-Webby online and is working on other ways to serve the camp community remotely, wrote Ms. Gallagher, who noted that two Camp Jabberwocky directors live full-time on the Vineyard and several volunteers remain available.

Formally known as the Martha’s Vineyard Cerebral Palsy Camp, Inc., Camp Jabberwocky was founded in the early 1950s by Helen (Hellcat) Lamb and now serves about 120 adults and children with disabilities each summer, as well as offering spring and fall family camps. The all-volunteer camp staff provides a one-to-one camper to counselor ratio.

Jabberwocky campers are familiar figures in the Island summer landscape, often riding in the camp’s painted bus and taking enthusiastic part in the Edgartown Fourth of July parade each year. The Camp Jabberwocky musicals in July and August draw standing-room-only crowds.

The Vineyard Haven camp recently winterized its main cabin and kitchen, where cooks from Island Grown Initiative have been making soups over the winter for the Island Food Pantry and other food sharing networks on the Vineyard.

To learn more about the camp and its online offerings, visit the Jabberwocky website.