Summer gives youth a chance to decompress before the start of the next school year and experience the season’s joys with trips to the pool, baseball games, and quality time with each other. There are also abundant enrichment opportunities and summer camps of all types. But these opportunities can be more difficult to secure for working families due to cost, hours, competitive and limited enrollment, and transportation barriers. And, like so many things, families living at APAH feel these challenges more acutely than households with more financial resources.

So, this summer APAH addressed those barriers and hosted its first summer-camp for young residents . For six weeks, summer camp kept 20 kids learning and entertained weekdays from 9am-4pm which allowed parents and caregivers to go to work without worrying about their children.

It was a summer packed with adventures and new experiences. Weekly field trips included a Washington Nationals game, bowling, a pool visit, and more. On pool day, a young camper exclaimed, “We are going to the pool? I’ve never been to one before!”.

Onsite activities like drumming lessons, art and nutrition classes, career day with APAH staff, and various STEM projects incorporated an educational element in between all the popsicles.

And, workshops on social justice and social-emotional learning provided life lessons for the next generation of leaders in our community.

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