Summer@Faith
Summer Enrichment
Summer@Faith is an evening summer enrichment program that provides opportunities in literacy, the arts, and spiritual development. Offered in collaboration with Faith Christian Fellowship Church, Summer@Faith serves young people from Pen Lucy and throughout the Baltimore area.
Bible Camp
On Tuesdays, younger learners explore the Bible and discover God’s love for them through stories, songs, games, and hands-on activities.
PLANarts
On Wednesdays, students in grades 3-12 explore music, visual art, dance, or slam poetry/spoken-word classes led by local teaching artists. Students choose an area of concentration and create an artistic piece to present at the conclusion of the program.
Summer Reading Club
On Thursdays, students in grades K-8 choose books to read with an adult reading buddy, building literacy skills and a love of reading in a relaxed and inviting atmosphere. After reading time, students and their buddies team up for enrichment activities.
Stopping the Summer Slide
Young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities over the summer. This can be especially true of low-income students, who lose an average of 2 months of grade-level equivalency in reading and math skills over the summer. The National Summer Learning Association has named this phenomenon the “summer slide,” but has shown that students who attend summer enrichment programs often experience benefits in math and reading. Summer@Faith keeps students engaged in meaningful learning experiences to combat the summer slide.
Building Bridges
Baltimore faces many challenges, including an extremely segregated population. Morgan State University professor Dr. Lawrence Brown has stated that Baltimore is characterized by “hypersegregated neighborhoods [which] experience radically different realities.” Summer@Faith is a small but important opportunity to build bridges across these cultural and racial divides. For several years, Summer@Faith has drawn a racially and socioeconomically diverse group of young people who come together around shared interests in literacy, the arts, and spirituality. Within the program and in their daily lives, these young people are building friendships that cross the lines that have long divided our beloved city.