Collaborative Awards More Than $3 Million in Grants to Baltimore City Summer Programs

Dur­ing an event today at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, May­or Cather­ine Pugh joined the Bal­ti­more Sum­mer Fund­ing Col­lab­o­ra­tive as it award­ed more than $3 mil­lion in grants to sup­port sum­mer activ­i­ties for Bal­ti­more City’s chil­dren and youth. The awards were made to 92 non­prof­its that serve var­i­ous city neighborhoods.

Casey is a mem­ber of the col­lab­o­ra­tive along with the Abell Foun­da­tion, Care­First Blue­Cross BlueShield, Clay­ton Bak­er Trust, Fam­i­ly League of Bal­ti­more, France-Mer­rick Foun­da­tion, The Har­ry and Jeanette Wein­berg Foun­da­tion, Joseph & Har­vey Mey­er­hoff Fam­i­ly Char­i­ta­ble Funds, Lock­hart Vaugh­an Foun­da­tion, The Mor­ton K. and Jane Blaustein Foun­da­tion and Under Armour.

“We have to make sure we have sum­mer pro­grams that not only let chil­dren play, but that grow their skills,” said Pugh. ​“There are a num­ber of pro­grams that are going to be sup­port­ed as a result of this mon­ey… and the fund­ing real­ly will help us change the mind­sets of our [young people].”

With­out access to engag­ing activ­i­ties over the sum­mer, many stu­dents lose knowl­edge and skills gained dur­ing the pre­vi­ous school year – par­tic­u­lar­ly youth from low-income fam­i­lies, who can lose more than two months in read­ing achieve­ment alone, research shows.

The fun­ders have joined forces to help com­bat this ​“sum­mer slide” and pro­vide more young peo­ple with qual­i­ty aca­d­e­m­ic, enrich­ment, recre­ation­al and work expe­ri­ences. The pro­grams they select­ed range in focus from lit­er­a­cy, health and well­ness, sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing and math, youth employ­ment, col­lege and career readi­ness, envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion, sports and the arts.

See where the pro­grams will operate