Greater Lawrence Summer Fund

The Greater Lawrence Summer Fund (GLSF)was started in 1990 by Betty Beland, Administrator of the Stevens Foundations in North Andover. In January of 2001, ECCF was asked and agreed to take over the fund. The goal for the fund is to raise as much money as possible to serve as many local kids during the school summer vacation months as possible. Lawrence is a chronically poor city with one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. These conditions put kids at risk of turning to negative behaviors. It is vital to keep our youth engaged, learning, inspired and off street corners. Make a gift to GLSF!

Adelante
	Adelante is the Spanish word for “moving forward.” Founded in 1992 and now located in the Lawrence, Massachusetts YMCA, Adelante Inc. offers test prep, academic enrichment and summer learning/recreation programs to 7th and 8th grade students, and scholarships to high school students in grades 9 - 12. Scholarship students are required to perform community service as their way of giving back. Adelante relies on grants and donations to serve these talented and aspiring young people from limited-income families as they build bridges to success in the future.
The Asian Center
	Soda Science (a series of chemistry explorations) and Balls and Tracks (an engineering project based on designs of a ski jump and a roller coaster) were just a few of the hands-on activities that helped convey science and math concepts in our summer program for over sixty children ages 4 to 12 at the Asian Center of Merrimack Valley, Inc. this July. For four weeks children in grades one through six took enrichment classes in science, math, reading/writing and art with a sprinkling of field trips. Thanks to ECCF for helping to fund this program.
Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence
	More than 500 youngsters from the Greater Lawrence area participate in fun, safe and structured learning activities during the summer months at the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence. Each day the kids choose from a variety of activities including swim lessons, educational workshops, field trips, arts and crafts and competitive games. In our state-of-the-art Computer Room, they receive instruction and play educational games. Children also have the opportunity to develop new skills through participation in activities made possible by community collaborations with the Greater Lawrence Community Boating Program, the Willows Tennis Club and Ironstone Farm's horseback riding school.
Challenge Unlimited
	Challenge Unlimited at Ironstone Farm has a summer program for kids with behavior disorders from the Lawrence School For Exceptional Studies. Horses have an incredible healing effect on people and through the interaction with them, kids receive powerful opportunities to grow and learn important life and social skills.
Community Day Charter Public School
	Community Day Charter Public School is a K-8 grade public charter school that provides an academically challenging education for 331 Lawrence children. The students reflect the demographics of the city, 87% are Hispanic; and 71% are low-income. Students learn together in classrooms where teachers collaborate and individualize instruction based on the state’s learning goals.  Greater Lawrence Summer Fund supports the Summer Academy which is a month-long program that combines academics with fitness and recreational activities that help students develop skills essential for success in school and in life. Parents of CDCPS Summer Academy students in the Early Learning Center were invited to read to children to reinforce the importance of reading.
Easter Seals
	In 1965, Easter Seals started the nation’s first inclusionary summer camping program where children with and without disabilities participated in the camping experience together. In partnership with Agassiz Village in Maine, it continues to be unique in its ability to integrate campers with a variety of disabilities into the full range of camp activities. Recreational activities include sports, games, archery, swimming, and camp outs, providing outdoor exercise, socialization and skill. Easter Seals also operates summer programs at the Mass. Hospital School.
Essex Art Center
	The Essex Art Center's focus is to empower children by enabling them to explore their own creative resources, allowing them to recognize their self worth. Creativity is explored through many mediums including: painting, drawing, clay, puppetry, found object sculpture, photography, batik, fabric art and much more. Essex Art Center consists of two professional galleries, three spacious classrooms, a darkroom, a ceramics room, artists studios, a drawing studio and a brand new media lab for film-making.
Family Service- Project Venture Summer Adventure Camps
	Family Service’s mission is to help people help themselves by building skills, providing opportunities, and increasing knowledge to live successful and productive lives. Family Service is committed to reaching under-served and at-risk populations who face the stresses of poverty, family violence, aging, linguistic and cultural isolation. Project Venture Summer Adventure Camps provide young people from Lawrence, MA with the opportunity to participate in outdoor activities that give them a chance to personally experience achievement and take ownership for their accomplishments.
Greater Lawrence Community Boating Program
	Greater Lawrence Community Boating teaches rowing and sailing to youth and families from across the Merrimack Valley.  Our beautiful boathouse is a second home to community youth for the summer, and many of them spend the entire day here participating in any number of programs and projects that are offered throughout the day.  In addition to the hundreds of members who participate for free through the Lawrence Recreation Department, we have forged new partnerships with the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Esperanza Academy, and Lawrence High School to make sure we are reaching out to those groups who who might not otherwise have the resources to participate in boating activities.  One student from Lawrence High who participated in a full day Enrichment Program here at the boathouse said the other day, "This was the best summer.  I feel important, like I am part of a community."
GroundWork Lawrence
	Groundwork Lawrence, a non-profit in Lawrence, Massachusetts makes change happen through environmental and open space improvements, community food programs, youth initiatives, and community programming and events. The Green Team is a year-round program that offers part-time employment for 10 high school students each year. Members learn about and lead environmental and healthy community initiatives, conduct research, raise awareness, challenge their peers to do community service and participate in hands-on improvement projects throughout the city. In the summer of 2009 Green Team was successfully engaged in a number of activities including gardening, cooking, financial literacy, trail maintenance and park clean-ups.
Lawrence Community Works- Movement City
	Lawrence Community Works is working to transform and revitalize the physical, economic, and social landscape of Lawrence. Our dynamic youth program, Movement City, offers a variety of innovative programming that connects to the interests and talents of city youth. We work with youth on an individual basis to identify their strengths, build on their interests and offer them the support to walk down their own creative paths. This continuously evolving arts and design-based programming – currently graphic design, video production, dance, voice, fashion design and music production - allows youth to explore their creative potential, learn hard and soft skills, and connect their passions to potential career and educational paths.
Lawrence Family Development & Education Fund Summer Institute
	Summer Institute 2009 is an education program designed to address the multiple barriers to educational success experienced by many of the students enrolled at Lawrence Family Development Charter School. It runs for four weeks, Monday through Friday, and has two major components. The primary work takes place during the morning session in an intensive academic program intended to remediate low achievement in core academic subjects. The afternoon session, supported by the Greater Lawrence Summer Fund, offers enrichment activities such as food preparation and nutrition, dance, art and three educational fieldtrips. The final day of the program brings students and teachers together to celebrate their achievements through a cookout and fun activities.
Merrimack College ABA
	Founded in 1981, Merrimack College’s Academic Basketball Awareness (ABA) Camp provides disadvantaged youth from Lawrence, MA with a week-long summer residential academic and athletic experience on the college’s campus in North Andover. Now in its 29th year, the ABA Camp is a collaboration between the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, an organization that has effectively promoted youth development in the Merrimack Valley for over a century.  Under the direction of Merrimack’s Basketball Coach, Bert Hammel, approximately 150 boys, ages 10-18, participate in the program which strives to develop their potential as both a student and an athlete.
Methuen Arlington Neighborhood Inc.
	The Methuen Arlington Neighborhood is a densely populated, low to moderate income area which borders the City of Lawrence and shares many of the same problems; poverty, lack of employment opportunities, and social ills.   To begin improving the quality of life in the area, neighborhood residents formed a Community Development Corporation, the Methuen Arlington Neighborhood, Inc. (M.A.N., Inc.) in March of 1995. MAN, Inc. provides educational and recreational opportunities, health outreach, social services, an after-school homework center, and a Satellite Library.
Northern Essex Community College- College for Kids
	College for Kids is a unique and innovative middle school aged summer camp offered through the Department of Education at Northern Essex Community College. Campers have access to all college facilities: biology labs, art studios, computer labs, photography labs, the gymnasium, the theater and the television studio. Northern Essex believes all children learn through creative arts experiences with options including sculpture, painting and drawing. For children with an interest in science, options include physical science, biology and archaeology. Performance classes include Shakespeare, movie making, musical theater and playwriting. Computers, technology and engineering, robotics and animation are offered as well.
North Andover Historical Society- Adventures in Time
	The North Andover Historical Society’s summer enrichment program, Adventures in Time, just completed its 20th season. Life as a Baby Boomer brought us back in time to the world of the 1940s, ‘50s, and early 60s. On-site the children planted their own “Victory Garden”, experienced “playground crafts” and prepared Fun Fifties food.  During Threads of History we became water engineers at the Tsongas Center, while the Spencer Pierce Little Farm trip gave new meaning to “Sheep to Shawl”, and the children made their sewing kit, learned the art of mending, and constructed their own drop spindles.
Northeast Independent Living Program (NILP)
	The Northeast Independent Living Program (NILP), serving people with disabilities in the Merrimack Valley, hosted the Fifth Annual TeenFest summer program for youth with disabilities and youth at risk.  Once again the Epic Theatre Ensemble of New York City has partnered with the NILP staff to have two fun-filled weeks of activities for youth in Greater Lawrence.  Teens developed and wrote their own play, under the guidance of the Epic Theatre Ensemble of New York City. The play is based on some experiences they had growing up and is the result of group development and teamwork.
Northshore Youth Symphony Orchestra- Summer Strings
	“Summer Strings” is a week long day camp at Community Day Charter Public School serving 30 young Lawrence violinists with other children from surrounding towns.  Activities include fiddling, Spanish dancing, classical chamber music, art and social activities, led by some of the nation’s most prestigious dance, fiddling and violin instructors. The highlight is the end-of-camp concert where all students perform in several ensembles before parents and friends. NYSO provides scholarships for all the Lawrence children. Goal realization is a vital part of the program as students perform multiple new works learned within the space of a few days.  Students grow musically and in self-esteem as they play and perform music together.
Phillips Andover ABL
	Founded in 1987, Andover Bread Loaf features a unique collaboration between the Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College's graduate school of English) and Phillips Academy. On July 17th the Lawrence public school students from Andover Bread Loaf's Lawrence Student Writers Workshop read their work aloud to an audience of over 200 at the Community Room, 60 Island Street, Lawrence.  Over 95 students participated in the intensive three week writing and arts program.  In addition to their work in the arts (poetry, memoir, storytelling, theater, dance, photography, film, etc), the students created multi-media projects around the societal, health, and sustainability issues that effect their community with the aim of "making their world a better place."
Phillips Andover PALS
	PALS was created in 1988 as a part of the Phillips Academy Community Service Program to address the educational needs of middle school children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Andover's neighboring city of Lawrence, MA.  PALS serves approximately 50-60 students annually from grades seven and eight in the Lawrence Public Schools. Its curriculum helps students set long-term goals, guides them in planning their high school programs and supports their day-to-day academic successes, especially in math, science, computer use, reading, writing, and vocabulary development. The program also seeks to build the self-confidence so critically needed to promote personal and social responsibility during the early teen years.
Prep@Pingree
	Prep@Pingree is an academic enrichment program for thirty-five students from inner-city schools who have successfully completed the seventh and eighth grades. Beginning on the Pingree School campus for five weeks in the summer and continuing throughout the school year, the program enables students to sharpen their math, verbal, analytical, written and study skills. In addition to math and English courses, the Prep@Pingree curriculum includes engineering design and history courses. Students also are provided opportunities for social and cultural exploration within Essex County and beyond.
The Higher Education Center (HERC)
	The Higher Education Center (HERC) has established Passport, an academic enrichment and college-advising program for high school juniors and seniors who are low to moderate- income and/or first generation college students. Passport is a curriculum-based holistic approach to helping students develop the skills, motivation and determination necessary to successfully enter and complete college. Part of that preparation includes help with the SATs. HERC collaborates with Let’s Get Ready (LGR), an organization that shares similar core values and goals, in order to provide 55+ students from Lawrence with intensive summer SAT preparation classes that familiarizes students with the test and hones test taking techniques. LGR/HERC also provides college campus tours in order to get students not only prepared for college, but excited for college as well.
St. Ann's Home
	Over 100 children and adolescents, ages 5-17, spent a week on Cape Cod this summer thanks to the generosity of the New England Food Foundation, who donated their Cape House, and the Essex County Community Foundation. Over a six week period during the summer, each of our units had the opportunity to spend one week on the Cape. For many of these children this is the first time they have experienced a typical vacation away from home; many seeing the ocean for the very first time. The week serves as an opportunity for the children to step back and take time away from the often demanding routines involved in 24/7 residential care and treatment.
Windrush Farm Therapeutic Equitation Inc.
	Windrush Farm Therapeutic Equitation, Inc. (WFTE) is a non-profit, working horse farm that has been successfully helping children and adults with physical, neurological, emotional/behavioral, learning and developmental disabilities since 1964. We use the horse to expand the personal, emotional and physical boundaries of all who ride and work with us on the principle that all of us, disabled or not, are capable of more than we think. A program specifically for at-risk youth with behavioral challenges gives the children an opportunity to learn to ride, take care of horses, and be independent in a structured and supportive environment.
Merrimack Valley YMCA- Camp Otter
	Since 1880, the Merrimack Valley YMCA has been serving area residents by offering healthy, active programs in an atmosphere that encourages the values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. Started in 1957, Camp Otter is the Y’s day camp. An average of 180 campers (aged 6-13) attend each week and are served by a staff of 50. Through athletic and creative programs, youth are challenged to develop their own activity skills and learn about working with others. Teaching values and behaviors—teamwork, sportsmanship, leadership, respect for others and appreciation of the natural world—are the focus of the camp experience.
Merrimack Valley YMCA- Lawrence- SACC
	The School Age Child Care (SACC) Summer Program, at the Y directly responds to the pressing needs of the community as it transforms the prime time for juveniles to partake in negative behaviors into much needed opportunities in academic, cultural and personal enrichment, health/wellness, and wholesome fun. The SACC Summer Program focuses on character development by teaching the values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility through a variety of identified goals, objectives and activities.  This year’s curriculum explores various health and wellness activities, environmental activities, leadership programs, and music exploration related to the culture of Lawrence. Youth continue their academic learning through math games, literacy, computer, and cooking activities, as well as enhancing their appreciation and investment in their own community.
Merrimack Valley YMCA- Methuen
	The Summer Child Care Program located at the Methuen Branch of the Merrimack Valley YMCA combines a varied schedule of both educational and recreational activities for children. This day-long program serves over 104 children between the ages of 5 and 12 who would otherwise be unsupervised at home or in their neighborhoods during regular work hours of 7 a.m.-6 p.m. Summer program activities include Summer Reading Club, vocabulary development, hands-on science activities, math activities, arts and crafts, computer activities, and gardening, swimming, music exploration, and gym games.
YWCA Lawrence
	Guided by its mission of empowering women and girls and eliminating racism, the YWCA works in collaboration with community residents and other providers to foster leadership, self-determination and self-sufficiency for women, girls and families of all ethnic, racial and social identities. The YWCA’s Girls’ Center Summer program (City Camp) serves Greater Lawrence girls between the ages of 6 and 12. City Camp has a strong focus on activities that promote and support academic values and skills. Participants explore new ideas and activities, learn both teamwork and leadership skills, and participate in programs that help them make healthy life choices.