What Summer Really Means

For many parents and their kids in inner-city neighborhoods, the start of summer doesn't mean exciting family vacations, swim lessons, or trips to amusement parks. For parents struggling with extreme low-income and their kids, who rely on free/reduced price breakfasts and lunches during the school year, summer instead brings with it worry and anxiety about finances, safety, and food.

The challenges that kids growing up on the southwest side of Indianapolis face are very, very real:

-Only 44% of area residents 25 and older have a high school diploma and less than 5% of adults have any post-secondary education
-Over 25 gangs are active in Indianapolis with over 20 gangs identified as active on the city's Westside

Furthermore, research indicates that kids from families with low-incomes face significant disadvantages in the summer as compared to children from other socio-economic backgrounds (Center for Summer Learning):

-Two-thirds of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. As a result, low-income youth are less likely to graduate from high school or enter college (Alexander et al, 2007).
-Most students lose about two months of grade-level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months. Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, while their middle-class peers make slight gains (Cooper, 1996). When this pattern continues throughout the elementary school years, lower income youth fall more than two and one-half years behind their more affluent peers by the end of fifth grade.

In the midst of these challenges, kids need a place to go where they can learn, grow, and have fun--and that's why Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center's Summer Day Camp is so important.

Each summer, MRNC holds a ten-week day camp for up to 150 at-risk kids, aged 5-13, from 6:30 am-6:00 pm. Days are filled with activities, field trips, and meals that allow working parents to maintain full-time employment and peace of mind. And each summer kids are challenged to believe in themselves--to believe that they can graduate from high school, that they can go on to college, and that they can have the job of their dreams.

Thanks for believing in kids facing serious challenges here in southwest Indianapolis. Visit us on the web at www.maryrigg.org