UPDATE: DISNEY FILMS TV SERIES ABOUT A CHILDREN’S CAMP WHERE ROXIE FORBES SUFFERED A HORRIFIC DEATH
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 barbaric death due to grossly negligent acts by Summerkids camp, according to volumes of legal documents. 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 died in 2019 under extremely unsettling circumstances.
According to Key Assistant Location Manager Lucian Unruh, the series – working title “Homeroom” – is about “children at a camp.” Disney is filming at Summerkids in Altadena, a children’s camp where Roxie Forbes suffered a a shocking, preventable death at just six years old.
According to court filings and exhibits, Summerkids owners were ultimately responsible for certifying counselors as fake lifeguards, without affording requisite training or any testing. Roxie subsequently drowned in the small Summerkids pool. The camp owners and the fake Red Cross instructor apparently orchestrated these acts to save money, according to the allegations in court documents and the actual invoices that prove how they pocketed extra money.
The camp owners reopened Summerkids during the pandemic despite the California Attorney General and Department of Social Services suing her for operating an illegal child care facility.
The former assistant camp director 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 own media property, ABC7 Los Angeles, joined multiple major networks and newspapers in reporting Roxie’s death, her parents’ subsequent advocacy and the ensuing lawsuits.
In the face of this widespread publicity, Disney nonetheless decided to secure a contractual agreement with the Summerkids director-owner to rent the property. She contracted with Disney despite knowing that Matyas was a veteran Disney attorney, despite knowing she was was embroiled in a wrongful death lawsuit with Matyas and her husband Doug Forbes and despite knowing that Matyas was dying at the time.
Disney Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Geoff Morrell 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 the people that Morrell involved is Vice President of Corporate Communications Charissa Gilmore who has worked with Matyas on a number of Disney initiatives. Gilmore said Disney had made no mention of pulling the production from the Summerkids location nor did she offer any official company statement.
“I am heartbroken and suffering more than ever,” said Matyas. “I have poured my heart and soul into my work at Disney for 17 years, yet my company is now paying the people that killed my child. This is beyond cruel.”
Disney has not yet disclosed the sum of location rental fees it agreed to pay the camp owners. 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.
“The family that owns Summerkids, especially the director, full well know that my wife is a veteran Disney employee,” said Roxie’s father Doug Forbes. “Her actions prove that she is willing 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 all you need to know about her and her family.
Forbes said that Summerkids attorneys Peggy Holm and Sheryl Rosenberg should, at the very least, resoundingly admonish the camp-owning family if not demand that they nullify the contract and refund the money Disney paid her.
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, especially since millions of children attend tens of thousands of unregulated camps each year. Summer camp harm is more pervasive than families know, according to Forbes’ ongoing investigation of the industry.
Forbes said Los Angeles County acted inhumanely 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 and work with county officials to develop summer camp regulations.
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, Board of Supervisors and even Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti knew about health and safety issues at the camp.
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.