Summer Appeal

Boys & Girls Clubs of the Capital Area provides kids with safe and fun summer experiences that give them the confidence to learn, explore, grow, and discover their passion and maybe even experience the great outdoors.

For many families, the start of summer is a significant challenge due to the lack of child care and the loss of regular, reliable meal sources for their children. BGCCA has been helping local families meet these needs for over 130 years but we cannot do it alone. We need your help to ensure that youth continue to have a safe place to go with access to vital services.

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What is Learning Loss?

Studies show that children who are not in engaged in summer learning opportunities are destined to start the next school year behind their peers.

These students are especially at risk of falling an entire grade behind their fellow students by 5th grade if they are not provided with summer enrichment and learning opportunities.

While all students are suffering, those who came into the pandemic with the fewest academic opportunities are on track to exit with the greatest learning loss

NBC shows how summer learning loss puts students at a disadvantage academically.

Our Solution

Here’s the good news. Experts say that expanded learning programs like Summer Camps are the answer to combat Learning Loss! Our 8-week summer camp offers a healthy and safe place for low-income youth with enrichment-based activities designed to help combat summer learning loss.

Our summer camp programs balance educational, interactive, hands-on projects and enrichment activities that integrate learning activities to complement what children are learning during the school year with typical summer camp activities, such as music, games and sports.

How You Can Help

With the arrival of summer, our Summer Camp ensures that at-risk youth can continue to engage academically and combat summer learning loss while enjoying the great outdoors through field trips. Boys & Girls Club programs foster creativity, self confidence, leadership, and a sense of belonging. We invite you to partner with us to make this the best summer yet for our kids.

Will you consider making a gift today?

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The Case for Camp

High-quality summer programming is essential to the academic and social success of the youth we serve. All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer.

Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in mathematical skills over summer months.
Low-income students also lose two months in reading achievement, despite their peers making slight gains.
More than half of the achievement gap between varying income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities.
The achievement gap widens with disparity in teacher access, connectivity, and adult help.
As a result, low-income youth are less likely to graduate from high school or enter college.

Barbara Heyns, a New York University sociologist, spent two years following nearly 3,000 sixth- and seventh-grade students in Atlanta’s public schools. She found that children who read at least six books during the summer maintained or improved their reading skills, while children who did not read at all during the summer saw their literacy skills slip by as much as an entire grade level.

Food Security

Camp doesn’t just impact academic success. Our camp also cultivates healthy lifestyles.

Additionally, most children—particularly children at high risk of obesity—gain weight more rapidly when they are out of school during summer break due to low-nutrition food and a lack of exercise.

“If kids living don’t have access to healthy food and safe places to play, what are we setting them up for? . . . It seems almost an unreasonable expectation for many of these students to be ready for school in the fall when they have gone part or all of the summer break without adequate nourishment for their bodies or minds.”

— Patrice Chamberlain, Director, CA Summer Meal Coalition

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Other Ways to Help