Summer Programs Offer Variety of Learning and Activities
Summer programs provide a diverse mix of experiences, including a bake sale fundraiser for Meals from the Heartland.
Hoyt Middle School 7th grader to be Alaina Stensrud was at school on Tuesday and she couldn’t have been happier. She was among friends in the district’s robust summer program at one of nine 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Besides Hoyt, program sites – all middle schools – include Callanan, Goodrell, Harding, Hiatt, Meredith, McCombs and Weeks.
The program started on June 8th and runs through July 17th. It’s primarily made possible through a generous grant from United Way of Central Iowa and is serving roughly 1,000 students in a wide range of arts, culture, STEM, intramural sports and service learning activities.
At Hoyt the numbers are up substantially from last summer, thanks at least in part to positive word of mouth reports from kids who tested the waters a year ago, like Alaina.
“My favorite part is meeting kids and making friends,” she said while taking a shift at the sales table for the Hoyt bake sale Tuesday afternoon.
The merchandise was produced in the program’s Healthy Living/Cooking “class” and the sale also ties in with the service learning aspect. Proceeds will be used to purchase foodstuffs the kids will later package for Meals from the Heartland. A lemonade stand later in the summer will serve the same purpose.
Community partners such as AmeriCorps, CultureAll and Community Youth Concepts are working with program coordinators, teachers, and coaches at each school site to offer a summer experience the kids actually get excited about. It includes everything from global cooking to martial arts, technology, robotics and sports. Fieldtrips are a highlight, too, to popular venues like the Des Moines Art Center, the Iowa Hall of Pride and the State Historical Building. The program also represents a terrific way for new 6th graders to make connections before the school year begins and ease the transition into middle school.
CultureAll provides a steady stream of guest speakers to broaden horizons and perspectives. While the bake sale reps in the Hoyt front hall were moving a lot of goodies (red, white and blue marshmallow suckers were popular with the 4th of July looming) Abe Goldstien, for instance, from the Community Jazz Center was in the music room offering a Jewish perspective of growing up and showing off on the accordion that he told the kids he used to pay his way through college. Goldstien plays nowadays with the Java Jews, a local band that mixes Yiddish and Hebrew melodies with Dixieland jazz.
Staffers at the Hoyt site include teachers Brent Granger and Shaun Loneman and site coordinator Josh Osborne. Carson Carey, who just graduated from Roosevelt High School last month and is headed for Grinnell College in the fall, also helps out as one of the district’s summer AmeriCorps troops.
So did Alaina actually bake any of the cookies and cupcakes she was selling on Tuesday?
“Well, no, but my friends Hannah and Paris and I did a lot of the sidewalk chalk outside that points the way in here,” she said. “That part that says ‘Follow the flip-flops?’ We used my flip-flops to trace around.”
Not only did she seem happy to be there. She may even be proud.
