Commentary: Businesses can help keep summer camps open

By Ellen London,

Every summer, 150 District elementary and middle school students in the Kid Power summer program get hands-on entrepreneurship experience: They work in their own bakery and garden producing cookies and vegetables that they sell for a profit.

In the program, they learn a range of job readiness skills, including public speaking, organization and time management. This kind of early preparation is important, given that the city has a large proportion of low-skilled residents languishing in unemployment, unable to take advantage of the high-paying, high-skill jobs in the federal government and contracting sector.

But sadly, recent city budget cuts are jeopardizing Kid Power and many other outstanding free summer programs for D.C. kids whose families can’t afford pricey camps. And that has implications for business people struggling to find qualified D.C. residents to fill job openings. The DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp. is appealing to business leaders for additional support of $750,000 to continue to provide these types of programs to 1,000 young people citywide.

Over the past decade, this nonprofit group has given more than $30 million in grants, much of it from city funds, for high-quality summer programs, serving as many as 10,000 low-income children a year in the District. This summer, we are unsure how we will provide these programs.

Cutting summer programs like Kid Power will mean risks and setbacks for many children in neighborhoods of high poverty, where summer vacation rarely brings exciting, fun-filled days or memorable experiences. Too often, it’s a precarious time with few opportunities for physical activity, academic and cultural enrichment, creative exploration or even proper nutrition.

Kid Power was founded in March 2002 by D.C. educators Max Skolnik and Caroline Sholl. It offers two entrepreneurial programs:

• At CookieTime, a partnership with CakeLove Bakery, middle school students bake and sell chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar and oatmeal raisin cookies at bake sales. Profits go to community service projects that the kids choose, such as school violence, breast cancer and Haitian earthquake relief.

• At VeggieTime, students study food and environmental sciences and operate eight citywide urban gardens. They sell produce and prepared foods at markets and restaurants and use the profits to support home and community service projects focused on nutrition.

Moreover, consultants from Booz Allen and Grant Thornton also come to Kid Power and teach kids about sales and marketing, saving and banking and attracting investors to their businesses.

Like many of our grantees that offer high-quality programs, Kid Power kids become better future workers because it helps them with academic achievement. Students in Kid Power, for example, have improved their reading skills by an average of 1.2 grade levels a year.Summer can be a world of opportunity for students, but the trust needs help from business leaders to keep these programs running. To learn more about how you can partner with us, please contact me at elondon@cyitc.org.

Ellen London is president and chief executive of the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corp., a nonprofit group that funds summer programs for children and youths in the District.