Does your child love band? Basketball or boxing? Cooking or hula hoops? Northside families with children in grades K-12 won’t want to miss this year’s exciting new roster of free summer camps designed by educators at five Minneapolis Public Schools campuses.
The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota has awarded its second year of Genius & Joy grants, which will support 11 distinct summer programs in July and August.
Genius & Joy grants enable MPS educators – including teachers, education support professionals (ESPs), support staff and administrators – to design engaging and enriching summer learning opportunities for their students. These camps occur at students’ home schools and bring them together with their familiar educators to sustain these relationships through the summer.
Families can register their students for all 11 Genius & Joy camps through Minneapolis Public Schools’ Community Education website: minneapolis.ce.eleyo.com/. Search the MPS catalog for “Genius and Joy.”
Genius & Joy camps this year include: Cityview Elementary, Reach for the Stars (August 1-18); Loring Elementary, Northside Joy Camp (August 1-18); Lucy Laney Elementary: Cooking Around the World (August 1-11), Boxing and Autobiographies (August 1-18), My Voice, My Art (August 1-18), Xpress Yourself (August 8-18), HBCU-Styled Steppers Camp (August 15-18) and Hoop Hoop Achieve (August 15-18); North Community High School, Northside United Summer Band Camp (July 11-21); and at Patrick Henry High, What’s My Name?! (July 18-21 and August 15-18), and Joy, Justice & Healing II (August 1-11).
All told, the Phillips Foundation will provide more than $220,000 for educator stipends and supplies at this year’s camps. Special thanks to Phillips’ Education Advisory Committee, comprised of Northside parents and educators, for reading this year’s Genius & Joy applications and recommending these for funding.