UPDATE: DISNEY FILMS TV SERIES ABOUT A CHILDREN’S CAMP AT CAMP THAT KILLED ROXIE FORBES, AND IT GETS WORSE
THIS PETITION NOW HAS NEARLY 41,000 SUPPORTERS WHO DEMAND THAT DISNEY MOVE ITS PRODUCTION, AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES, NOT WHAT IS CONVENIENT AND PROFITABLE FOR DISNEY. SIGN THE PETITION, SPREAD THE WORD. STOP DISNEY’S RELEASE OF THIS SERIES. AND CALL OUT THEIR INHUMANE BEHAVIOR.
UPDATE — MARCH 30: At the last minute, Disney CEO Chapek, Board Chair Arnold and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Morrell all bowed out of the meeting with Foundation President Doug Forbes and Board member Liliana Coronado. The only Disney employees remaining on the call were the company’s two top attorneys. They refused to record the call or publicly apologize, although they did privately apologize for Disney’s inhumane actions. They also shed tears as Forbes discussed the harm Disney did to his wife in her dying days and the harm Disney caused to the work the couple has been doing to protect millions of children from the child safety epidemic of sexual and physical harm at camps. Forbes said that Disney chose to do what’s convenient and profitable instead of what’s right and humane. Disney enriched the camp owners, refused to move the production and never apologized to Elena before she died or to the broad community impacted by Roxie's preventable death. Disney’s utter disregard for the Foundation’s work and for the signal it sends to other camps that harm children and cover up the circumstances with virtual impunity represents an abject failure in fundamental decency that echoes what Disney did to its own employees in Florida. Disney now said it wishes to have a second meeting with Forbes and Coronado within the next couple of weeks.
UPDATE — MARCH 11: After nonstop advocacy and growing support for its petition to move Disney’s production about a children’s camp from the camp that killed Roxie Forbes and harmed other children, senior officials including CEO Bob Chapek, Board Chair Susan Arnold and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Geoff Morrell have agreed to meet with Foundation President Doug Forbes. Stay tuned to see if Disney will do the right thing,
March 7, 2022
LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Company is filming a streaming television series at a summer camp where the child of a long-time Disney employee Elena Matyas was killed and myriad other children have been harmed.
According to Key Assistant Location Manager Lucian Unruh, the series – working title “Homeroom” – is about “children at a camp.” Disney is filming the project at Summerkids in Altadena, an actual children’s camp where Roxie Forbes drowned under dubious circumstances at just six years old.
According to court documents and sworn deposition testimony, Summerkids owner Cara DiMassa and her American Red Cross representative fraudulently certified counselors as lifeguards in order to save money on training. Roxie subsequently drowned in the small Summerkids pool while in the care of these fraudulently certified counselor-lifeguards.
The California Attorney General and Department of Social Services are suing DiMassa for operating an illegal child care facility. The hearing is scheduled for mid-May. The judge ruled against a temporary injunction but has indicated a tentative ruling in favor of the State.
DiMassa nonetheless opened her camp during the pandemic and is accepting checks and applications for the 2022 camp season despite the possibility that the State will prevent her from operating unless she changes her model.
DiMassa’s former assistant camp director Jaimi Harrison admitted that her boss sent at least 8-10 children to the hospital in recent years, including another 6-year-old who suffered a serious injury only weeks after Roxie drowned.
Disney’s media property, ABC7 Los Angeles, joined multiple major networks and newspapers in reporting Roxie’s death as well as her parents’ subsequent advocacy and the ensuing lawsuits. Despite this widespread publicity and the fact that Los Angeles County is rife with children’s camps, Disney chose to work with DiMassa.
Disney Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Geoff Morrell, former head of BP Oil public affairs said, “I am brand new to the company and still learning my way around, but I think I have the right people looking into this matter. We are gathering details.”
One of those people Morrell involved is Vice President of Corporate Communications Charissa Gilmore who has worked with Matyas on a number of Disney initiatives. Gilmore said Disney will not move the production from the Summerkids location. “I don’t think we have any additional information to add.”
“I am heartbroken and suffering more than ever,” said Matyas. “The very company that I have poured my heart and soul into for 16 years is now writing huge checks to the people that killed my child. This is outrageous and cruel, especially since top officials I have worked with don’t even have the common decency to apologize to me or consider the pain they have caused.”
Disney has not yet disclosed the sum of location rental fees it agreed to pay DiMassa. According to multiple industry sources, location fees range from $2,500/day at private houses to $25,000/day under more elaborate circumstances. Unruh said this production is scheduled to run from February-April, roughly 70 days.
“Disney’s actions are merciless,” said Roxie’s father Doug Forbes. “I contacted senior officials at a time when Disney could have and should have pulled the plug for obvious reasons. They refused. A self-proclaimed family-friendly company that does this to its own veteran employee who has worked with the CFO and other senior officials for years—it’s unforgivable?”
Forbes said that Cara DiMassa knows that his wife is a veteran Disney employee. He said she relishes the opportunity to be enriched at Elena’s emotional expense.
“She’s the same person who wrote to parents shortly after Roxie drowned to tell them they were not allowed to pick up their traumatized children because she wanted ‘to keep the day as normal as possible,’ which tells you everything you need to know about Cara DiMassa.”
Forbes said that DiMassa’s attorneys Peggy Holm and Sheryl Rosenberg of Tyson & Mendes should resoundingly admonish DiMassa if not demand that she nullify the contract and refund the money Disney paid her. He said DiMassa is not only aware of the glaring conflict of interest but also engaged in a lawsuit with the couple and with the state of California for operating an illegal child care facility.
Forbes and Matyas launched the nation’s only camp safety foundation “to honor Roxie in her death as they did in her life.” The couple is currently instituting unprecedented camp safety measures in Los Angeles county and working on similar legislation for the state and nation that would protect millions of children who attend tens of thousands of unregulated camps each year.
Forbes said Los Angeles County is also to blame for affording Disney a permit to film at Summerkids, considering the relentless advocacy work he has done with top county officials. He said that he and Matyas could have sued the county for being complicit in the negligence that contributed to Roxie’s death, but the couple chose to take a higher road.
“The county will have enriched itself with upwards of $10,000 or more from permit fees, enriched Disney by enabling them to film a streaming series and greatly enriched the family that killed my little girl and covered it up. In light of all this, perhaps suing the county from the start would have been a more effective means for illustrating systemic issues that cause children and families to needlessly suffer as we do.”
Forbes received an email from Board of Supervisors member Kathryn Barger that he said epitomizes the systemic issues of doing what is convenient and functional for local government, not what is correct and ethical for the public good.
In her email to Forbes, Barger does not address the Attorney General’s current lawsuit that deems the camp an illegal child care facility nor does she mention how the community that flanks Summerkids has, for years, notified authorities about the camp’s violations of safety and peaceful enjoyment rights.
Paul Audley is president of FilmLA, the county’s official film permitting office. Audley said he “does not have the authority to reject or deny applications.” That decision, he said, is left to county departments. He did not identify those departments or articulate whether the Board of Supervisors plays a role.
“Regarding FilmLA’s due diligence, we have within our database all properties that have been assigned special conditions or ‘no film’ directives from our various municipal departments.
When an application is in process, our system brings forward such directives for inclusion in the review and permit conditions.”
Audley did not mention any such directives regarding Summerkids, despite the fact that officials from police, fire, EMS, the Department of Public Health, the entire Board of Supervisors and even Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti knew about health and safety issues at the camp.
Forbes and supporters are planning a public protest outside Summerkids as well as sustained press and social media awareness campaigns. For more information, contact info@meowmeowfoundation.org.