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Summer Learning Action Team

Goal: Students maintain or gain ground academically and socially through a range of accessible, enriching summer activities.

Key Objectives

  • All young people in Evanston have access to enriching summer activities
  • Diverse orgs have incorporated literacy into their programming
  • Literacy materials and programming brought into community, meeting people where they are

Initial Focus

The Summer Learning Action Team has focused on 1) increasing access to books that reflect the diversity of our community; 2) encouraging reading in summer programming; and 3) increasing access to enriching summer opportunities.  Through a specially curated diverse book drive, EC2C has collected well over 1,000 new English and Spanish books reflecting our diverse community. These books have been distributed to summer camp programs and to children and families through EC2C partners and our Little Free Libraries in local parks. These libraries were built by ETHS students in Geometry in Construction, installed in local parks, and curated by EC2C and the Evanston Public Library.  

Additionally, EC2C and the Summer Learning Action Team have worked with Park District and other partner traditional summer camps to provide reading materials and incorporate 20 minutes of reading time into daily camp schedules, reaching over 4,500 Evanston students.

Finally, EC2C has challenged its partners to expand the availability of high quality literacy-focused summer programming to young people of limited financial means--resulting in an increase of over 130 program slots. Continuing to expand these opportunities is a priority going forward.