School’s out for summer, and our instructors are matching that youth energy of freedom and discovery. After successful summer pilots last year, we’re ramping up this year with more programming bringing game-filled, movement-based Inner Strength skill development sessions to students across eight partner sites. We are so glad to be able to support all these different summer programs, bringing young people tools to help them stretch and grow into strong, kind, and happy people.
ON AND OFF THE COURT
This year’s summer programs launched at the Horwitz Sixth Man Center, the incredible facility where students learn personal and academic skills while honing their basketball techniques on regulation level courts. (It’s a niiiiice space!) It’s our second year there and we’re expanding on our programming. We have a warm partnership with Philly Youth Basketball teaching our core skills around themes that help young athletes develop. They learn how their inner strength helps with outer stability on and off the court. Athletes are used to the mental training it takes to be good competitors and we look forward to building out their understanding of what that involves.
We’ve developed eight themes, highlighting 8 professional athletes who embody those themes. Here are a few of the general themes woven into our Inner Strength Positive Athlete program”
– Teamwork – being aware of the whole
– Cooperation – the means to do one’s best
– Emotional Awareness – being mindful of one’s own emotional state
– Staying Steady – accepting losses and mistakes
– and a few other key themes that help athletes thrive
INSPIRING MINDS & PHILLY YOUTH NETWORK
We’re also back with Inspiring Minds, Philly Youth Network schools, and beginning a program with the girls basketball team at Imhotep. Some groups are large, up to 42 young folks, and others intimate, with 7 or 8 in a cohort. Every group is filled with youth who are curious, engaged, and caring.Summer can be a quiet gap in a young person’s day. With a safe space and a caring adult nearby, that gap can grow into something meaningful. Without good programming, that unstructured time can be unsettling for students, or potentially filled with influences that do not steer the teens towards positivity and growth. Programming like Inner Strength gives students a caring place, someone to talk to, and a chance to open their minds to ideas and perspectives on their own well being that they hadn’t been exposed to keep building the skills that carry them to strong futures.Leading our summer efforts this year are our talented instructors Jazman Dobson and Christina Smith, who’ve brought real joy into every session. Our partner staff at each site are energized and present, working alongside students who, even in just their second week, are already locked in.This summer we’re looking forward to fun, meaning, and more beginnings of partnerships that will continue to grow. It’s been fun.We’re grateful to every partner and supporter who makes our after-school and summer programming possible. Thank you!
And if you want to bring Inner Strength to your summer or after school program, contact us! We’d love to talk with you.
