2021 Summer Learning Grant Applications
Applications are being accepted March 11 – April 4, 2021. Click here for guidelines and application instructions.
2020 Summer Learning Grants
Totaling $45,063 were awarded to 11 local organizations. Each grant supports summer learning programming featuring a literacy component and serving Berks County Title 1 students, PreK and up to and including 3rd grade:
- Berks Area Youth Recreation Incorporated: Summer camp participants will enjoy outdoor activities with the goals of fun, friends and environmental learning, all aligned with a fun method of reading and comprehension to keep and enhance the child’s reading skills to prepare for this year’s academic challenges.
- Brandywine Heights Area School District: Students will participate in a virtual reading program that will keep the students engaged in fun activities, while embedding basic foundational reading skills/practice.
- Clay on Main: Alphabet Acrobats will provide kits to families with activities for preschool children to support pre-reading skills.
- Daniel Boone Area School District: Daniel Boone will run a four-week, district-wide virtual summer program focusing on English Language Arts and Math.
- Governor Mifflin School District: The Kindergarten Countdown program will give students an opportunity to explore an early learning environment with an academic emphasis on developing literacy skills.
- Muhlenberg School District: Muhlenberg Elementary School will use a virtual learning plateform, Class Dojo, to post videos of guest readers reading books to their students and demonstrating fun academic videos like practicing sight words with sidewalk chalk.
- Reading Public Library: The Reading Public Library Mobile Tech vans will deliver quality outreach services and programming to community centers located within the city of Reading to meet out-of-school youth.
- Millmont Elementary School: The Ready, Set, Watch us Grow with Reading program will be a virtual learning experience enhanced with books about planting, the growing process, theme-related story books, and packets of seeds for planting.
- Amanda E. Stout Elementary School: The How to Become a YouTuber: Becoming a Digital Citizen program will teach students how to become responsible digital users by creating and publishing their own ideas through the use of videos.
- Glenside Elementary: The virtual online Summer Camp Academy will be themed around rhyme time and focus on nursery rhymes.
- YMCA of Reading & Berks County: Students will be assigned three or more books each week per child for ten weeks, which they will have to complete along with a short quiz and other virtual reading activities.
2019 Summer Learning Grants
Totaling more than $54,400 were awarded to 12 local organizations. Each grant supports summer learning programming featuring a literacy component and serving Berks County Title 1 students, PreK and up to and including 3rd grade:
- 10th & Penn Elementary: Students will participate in a variety of literacy, arts and STEAM activities.
- Amanda E. Stout Elementary School: STEAM Summer Camp will engage students to retain an academic mindset over the summer, focusing on literacy and critical thinking, as well as incorporate weekly nutrition lessons.
- Berks County Intermediate Unit: Childcare programs will feature STEM kits during the summer months.
- Brandywine Heights Area School District: The district’s elementary school’s summer book club will feature core literacy components to enhance fluency and comprehension for students.
- Daniel Boone Area Primary Center: Teachers in the Park will support summer learning through its “Literacy Leaders” program and embed literacy and learning activities where children play.
- Governor Mifflin School District: Students will explore an early learning environment, with a focus on developing literacy skills, in the district’s “Kindergarten Countdown” program.
- Lauer’s Park Elementary: A school and family STEM program includes modeled read alouds, field trips and promoting family, home-based literacy activities.
- Muhlenberg Elementary Center: Literacy activities will be coordinated with the district’s summer food program.
- Olivet Boys & Girls Club: The Pollinator Garden Project will add literacy and learning activities while children learn about the plant and pollination process.
- Reading Public Library: The library’s “Summer STEAM @ RPL” will support programs centered on a mobile technology van delivering programming to “book deserts”, or areas within the city located outside of walking distance to any library branch.
- YMCA of Reading & Berks County: Children will participate in reading and STEAM activities designed to evoke creativity and problem-solving skills.
- Yocum Institute for Arts Education: Its Summer Arts Connection Camps provides scholarships for students to participate in literacy/arts experiences, including plays, art projects and dance.
2018 Summer Learning Grants
Totaling more than $37,000 were awarded to eight local organizations to support summer programming featuring a literacy component and serving Berks County Title 1 students, up to and including 3rd grade:
- Antietam School District: Teachers in the Park at the Antietam Playground will provide instruction to students in a setting where kids want to be in the summer. Brandywine Heights Area School District: The district’s elementary school’s summer book club will feature core literacy components to enhance fluency and comprehension for students in K-3.
- Governor Mifflin School District: Students will explore an early learning environment, with a focus on developing literacy skills, in the district’s “Kindergarten Countdown” program. Priority will be given to students on the district’s Pre-K Counts waiting list.
- Olivet Boys & Girls Club: The Caterpillar Butterfly Summer Literacy Project will add literacy and STEAM related activities to the organization’s summer camp experience for children up to and including 3rd grade.
- Opportunity House: Pre school and early elementary students will advance their literacy and critical thinking skills through a special “Gardening Across the Curriculum” program.
- Reading Public Library: The library’s “Summer STEAM @ RPL” will support programs centered on a new mobile technology van recently acquired by the library to deliver programming to “book deserts”, or areas within the city located outside of walking distance to any library branch.
- Reading School District: The first “Red Knights in Training” program will better prepare incoming pre shool-age students and their families for success in kindergarten.
- Schuylkill Valley Community Library: The “Avoid the Slide and Leap into Summer” literacy based program for preschoolers and elementary students will extend reading into the community through instruction and hands-on activities.
The grant opportunity was available to Ready.Set.READ! (RSR) partner schools, Summer Learning Coalition members and other organizations serving Berks County Title 1 students and were awarded through a competitive process based on a review by a panel of community volunteers, including Ready.Set.READ! and United Way of Berks County board and committee members. Each organization could request up to $5,000.