Summer may look different this year, but it isn’t cancelled. Even if we can’t all be together, summer programs are adapting and innovating to ensure children and their families can access quality summer learning opportunities and critical supports and services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

National Summer Learning Week, led by the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), is a week-long celebration dedicated to elevating the importance of keeping kids learning, safe, and healthy every summer, ensuring they return to school in the fall ready to succeed.

Across Indiana, community leaders are recognizing Summer Learning Week. Governor Eric Holcomb has proclaimed July 6-11, 2020 as SUMMER LEARNING WEEK in Indiana, noting that summer learning is a critical component of our collective effort to ensure all students graduate from prepared for college, careers, and life. Other community leaders who have officially recognized the week with a proclamation include Michigan City Mayor Duane Parry and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.
Summer Program Spotlight
TeenWorks at Big Car Collaborative
TeenWorks is a work-based learning program that engages teens in Muncie and Indianapolis with 6-weeks of community-based work and weekly professional development in order to prepare them for success in community, college, and career.

Shauta Marsh - Co-Founder and Director of Programs & Exhibitions at Big Car Collaborative - says of TeenWorks: "TeenWorks is one of the most rewarding programs to be part of for us each year; to get to share our love of the arts and learn with them, is bar none.

"There is a shortage of young adults interested in the arts as a career. So on top of TeenWorks helping us with maintaining our grounds and buildings, we bring in different speakers - from visual artists and poets to musicians and bee keepers - to talk about their options. This year TeenWorks young adults helped us come up with ideas for our mobile museum, the Wagon of Wonders and are building a puppet theater to add to it, using our wood shop. They also help with our radio station, 99.1 WQRT and tactical urbanism projects like marking the Pleasant Run Trail."
Take Action to Support Kids
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact families, youth, and the afterschool program providers who serve them. These concerns should be top of mind for Congress and the administration when determining FY21 appropriations levels and negotiating coronavirus relief legislation.
Time is of the essence: please act now and urge Congress to prioritize young people in the coronavirus response.
Congress has only just a few short days in legislative session in July to act on a new COVID-19 stimulus. Additionally, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are preparing to pass FY21 spending bills determining education funding levels for next fiscal year.

You can make a difference: call on Congress today!