San Francisco’s District 11 Celebrates National Summer Learning Week

Every year, summer programs all around the country participate in National Summer Learning Week, hosting events that celebrate and elevate the importance of summer programs for children, youth, and working families.

In San Francisco, non-profit, community-based organizations (CBOs) are one of the primary providers of summer programming for thousands of the City’s children and youth. These programs prevent the learning loss that can happen during the months that school is out, and they are a vital support for San Francisco’s working families, who can rely on these programs to keep their children engaged in learning, safe, and having fun throughout the summer. In 2024, every CBO that is funded by the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF) to provide comprehensive, all-day summer programs for children and youth in grades K-8 hosted events to celebrate Summer Learning Week.

San Francisco’s District 11, which includes the Excelsior, Ingleside, Lakeview, and Outer Mission neighborhoods, hosted four Summer Learning Week events. Read on to find out how summer learning was celebrated in this part of San Francisco!

Aim High for High School

Aim High gave their students a taste of university life at their Aim High University Summer Learning Week event. In the morning, regular classes were replaced with ‘college level’ classes in which students could learn about degrees in Business, Science and Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Liberal and Creative Arts. In each class, students learned about the major itself, colleges and universities that support the major, and what a career with that major can look like. In the afternoon, students received student IDs and participated in a club fair to learn about the different clubs they could join as future college students. After Summer Learning Week, students synthesized and reflected on their Aim High University experience in their Issues and Choices class.

Bay Area Community Resources (BACR) — Guadalupe Elementary Beacon

BACR’s Guadalupe Beacon students celebrated Summer Learning Week with a plethora of fun activities: balloon popping contests, face painting, scoop-a-duck, knock-a-duck, and catch the fish. Students also created a chalk mosaic, make erupting volcanoes, and prevailed in a staff vs. students relay race and tug-of-war!

Stonestown YMCA — Jose Ortega Elementary Beacon

The Stonestown YMCA had a question for their Ortega Beacon students: are you ready to become Guardians of Nature? The answer was a resounding yes, of course! Students and their families worked together on sustainable art projects, using berries as pigments to make paintings, sculpting bird nests, and utilizing recycled materials to create multimedia artwork. Students and their families learned to respect, protect, and preserve our planet while having a great time!

Youth 1st

Everyone in the OMI and Lakeview start getting excited when they turn the calendar to July, because it means that the annual OMI/Lakeview Family Day is coming up! Family Day was founded by Renard Monroe, Executive Director of Youth 1st, to bring access and opportunity to the District 11 community. The event is open to everyone and has something for everyone: free performances, food, amusement rides, speakers, community awards, community resource tables, and this year, special appearances by Mayor London Breed, District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai, and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins!

Curious about DCYF’s investment in District 11? Here is a full list of our District 11 CBO grantee agencies, with links to their websites:

• Aim High for High School
• America SCORES Bay Area
• Bay Area Community Resources
• Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco
• City Surf Project
• Community Youth Center of San Francisco
• Enterprise for Youth
• Filipino Community Center
• Greater Farallones Association
• Ingleside Community Center
• Instituto Familiar de la Raza
• Jamestown Community Center, Inc.
• Japanese Community Youth Council
• Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
• Lavender Youth Recreation & Information Center
• Mission Science Workshop
• Mission YMCA
• Performing Arts Workshop
• Pin@y Educational Partnerships
• Playworks Education Energized
• San Francisco Peer Resources
• Springboard Collaborative
• Stonestown YMCA
• Strategic Energy Innovations
• Street Soccer USA — San Francisco
• Sunset Youth Services
• The Marsh
• Ultimate Impact
• Urban Services YMCA
• Women’s Audio Mission
• Young Community Developers
• Youth 1st/San Francisco Study Center
• Youth Art Exchange
• Youth Speaks

Check out our entire Summer Learning Week 2024 series on Medium to learn more about how all of our CBO grantees make San Francisco a great place to grow up!