Illinois Camp Gives Underrepresented Kids an Opportunity To Explore New Pathways

Summer camps in Evanston, Illinois — a quiet suburb just north of Chicago — usually consist of an array of different sports, educational programs, and even learning how to sail. But one thing is obviously apparent throughout the city’s camps: they’re almost all white.

Despite Black or African American families making up nearly 16% of Evanston’s population, Black kids are massively underrepresented throughout the city's summer camps.

That’s one of the many reasons why Greg Taylor started Camp Kuumba — a free summer camp meant to provide equal opportunities to children of color in academics and athletics. Taylor founded the camp in 2021 in response to local acts of gun violence, initially opening the camp only to local Black boys in grades 3-8.

“We felt the need to try and help young Black boys in our community find other pathways,” Taylor said. “We want them to explore different interests so they don’t get stuck thinking that they have to play basketball or make music to be successful.”

Camp Kuumba expanded to include girls in its third summer and now hosts over 175 campers each year. Taylor is also piloting a Latinx camp this summer to continue growing his mission to reach more kids in the community.

Through a daily schedule that consists of STEM classes, reading, writing, sports, field trips, and financial literacy lessons, Taylor and the camp’s counselors teach their campers how to be selfless and kind, to give back to their community, and to respect themselves and others.

“Primarily, we’re working on how we interact with one another, to try and learn how to celebrate ourselves and who we are and how we can extend that out to the broader community,” Taylor said. “Sometimes a kid might not feel like they have the same opportunities as other kids in school, but we're trying to make sure that the same opportunities are leveling out.”

An average day for Kuumba campers consists of a rotation of enrichment activities. Through biology, technology, reading, and writing classes — mostly curated by teachers at Evanston Township High School (ETHS) — campers get access to high-quality educational programs. The campers also participate in athletic rotations, where they learn new sports every week, ranging from basketball to tennis and even rowing.

For parent Ronald Theodore, whose 11-year-old daughter, Bailee, and nine-year-old son, Gavin, participate in the camp, sports have been a great way for his kids to explore new activities and gain confidence.

“Bailee knows that she can try new things and not be great at it, but she knows that if she gives her best effort, she can be proud of herself,” Theodore said. “The kids had a great experience that first summer in the camp with their activities.”

However, what sets Camp Kuumba apart are its in-depth lessons in financial literacy. Created by ETHS math teacher Dawn Eddy, the campers learn a financial literacy curriculum that teaches them that money is a tool, and provides lessons on investing and generational wealth that they can’t find elsewhere.

Throughout the day, campers earn Kuumba Cash for engaging in their enrichment activities and for working well as a group. At the end of the day, they can see their balance and are presented with decisions meant to emulate real-world financial decisions.

Campers can either deposit or withdraw cash from their account, spend money on snacks, participate in a makeshift stock market that can gain or lose them money at random, or invest their cash in a 5% account for it to grow throughout camp. Campers who invest their money tend to reap the greatest rewards.

“It gives cool ways for them to see how to use their money and to see how their money can work for them,” Taylor said. “They get really excited about seeing their account balances every day.”

While Theodore had already started to teach his kids about the importance of financial literacy, Kuumba’s lessons piqued their curiosity and allowed them to ask questions.

“They started asking more questions about investing, like ‘what is compounding interest?’ … they would come back to me and tell me what they learned at the end of the day,” Theodore said. “They took away a lot of knowledge from the financial literacy program.”

But the financial literacy lessons aren't just educational. At the end of camp, the money from the top-5 earners is deposited into a custodial investment account for the parents, providing real-world benefits for campers and their families.

In addition to their weekly lessons and activities, campers also participate in up to two field trips per week. In the first week of July, campers visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and took public transportation to Maggie Daley Park in the heart of the city.

The field trips have given campers the opportunity to explore Chicago, see it from different perspectives, and learn how to be independent.

“Camp Kuumba has exposed them to other forms of transportation that let them see the city from a different perspective,” Theodore said. “It helps the kids understand the city better and to be aware of their surroundings.”

Taylor also leads Camp Kuumba on local community service projects, such as helping to clean up local walking trails, writing letters to first responders, and working at local food banks, all aligning with the camp’s mission to teach kids how to be selfless and kind and how to give back to their community.

“[The campers] are a representation of themselves, of their families, of their school, and of Kuumba Evanston, and we want them to go out in the community and proudly interact with people in a positive way,” Taylor said. “The whole mission on a daily basis is to open their minds to doing their best and being proud of who they are.”

For Theodore, the community impacts of Camp Kuumba are on full display.

“Other kids who may not have access to camps that go on field trips or play sports get this great opportunity because they’re exposed to such great activities,” Theodore said. “It’s a lot of new experiences for kids of the community that they may not have the opportunity to get elsewhere.”

Jared Tucker is a sophomore at the University of Washington — Seattle studying Journalism and Public Interest Communication with a minor in History. Jared is also a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship, to share his thoughts on what democracy means to him and his perspective on its current health.

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