It’s just three more weeks until school ends and summer starts. For kids, summer break is an exciting time of no homework and lots of freedom–for working parents, it’s a bit of a nightmare as we need to find something to occupy our kids for the next 10-14 weeks.
I have managed to sign my two girls up for eight different week-long summer camps, and we’ve booked their flights to visit their grandparents for the remaining four weeks. So we’re all set, right? Wrong. The logistic challenge is just starting. Every week there’s a new and different schedule, and both kids are not attending the same camps together.
Tennis camp is 6 miles away, and while that doesn’t sound too bad, it would add 40 minutes of driving to our day getting her there and back. Plus, the camp is not on the way to the office.
I wish each summer camp could tell me who in our neighborhood is also going, or ideally offer a carpool transportation setup. Because they don’t, I reach out to all the parents of my kids’ friends for summer camp transportation trying to find out who is in the same camp and who is willing to carpool. I have to schedule all the days we need to get the kids there and back and confirm with the other parents. Luckily, my in-laws will be staying with us to take on some of the driving. The challenge starts when there are changes to the schedule and I need to swap.
GoKid tries to help all parents by providing a platform that will make setting up and managing carpools as easy as possible. With family accounts, it’s easy to add each child to the appropriate carpool with a tap of the screen–and easily assign your babysitter or other family member to drive.
Our vision is to eventually integrate our technology with the many providers of summer camps (such as Nike sports camps) and with schools, as well as with event venues such as Chelsea Piers – so users don’t even have to download an app but can go straight to each summer camp organizer and say yes to carpooling for their summer camp transportation.
Please give us another year before you see this kind of integration. For now, we’d love to get you in as an early user of our public beta and send us your feedback. Download the GoKid app for iOS here.
Happy summertime!
