Jesus, sunshine, a new favorite book, playing ball, and painting pictures with your pals all week long; now this is what summer is all about! We praise God that through partnerships with local churches and generous individuals like you, SCYM provided Camp Boost to 116 children this summer, free of charge! Camp Boost was hosted by Fellowship Springhill, High Street Church of the Nazarene, and Clifton Avenue Church of God, and was powered by the help of 79 volunteers from local congregations citywide, including a few who traveled from out of town.
Camp Boost is a VBS that’s been married to a reading camp. Summer reading loss is a real problem for children in our city. A student will test at the end of the school year at a good place, but then not touch a book all summer long, resulting in many students coming back to school the next year having fallen behind.
Did you know that federal and state funding for prisons utilize third grade reading levels to help calculate the size of prisons? High school graduation is also directly connected to these reading averages. The good news is that studies also show reading just 7 age-appropriate books during the summer is enough to curb summer reading loss. Camp Boost serves this purpose and provides an average of 12.5 hours of literacy activities per student. Camp Boost ends each camp week with “free book Friday,” where students can pick out their own books to take home with them. This year Camp Boost was also visited by the Clark County Library Book Mobile! In addition to all this, each student gets their very own, brand-new, age-appropriate Bible!
