Learning Center takes on summer camps
Advance correspondent BRISTOL BOROUGH - The council voted at its meeting Monday night to turn over its Kindergarten-to-Grade-three summer program to the Bristol Borough 21st Century Community Learning Center. The borough will pay the center $24,000 for the -uly 8 to Aug. 29 program. The cost is higher than the $21,000 the borough pays for its own summer camp, but that lasts only six weeks.
Gene Williams, executive director of the Grundy Foundation, said the proposal for K-3 mirrors the programs already available to the upper grades.
“These camps are about having fun and being creative. If the borough underwrites the K-3 program, we can use the same staff [hired by the borough],” Williams said.
All activities are free and available to any young person that attends any one of the borough schools, he said.
Mary Gesualdi, Title coordinator at Snyder-Girotti, outlined the components of the program: music, poetry, art, sports - stressing exposure to sports, not focusing on expertise - science, technology, math and literacy. Sessions will be held in half days. Morning programs run from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; Afternoon sessions will be 12 to 3:30 p.m. Free lunch will be served to all participants from noon to 12:30, Gesualdi said.
The borough will hire the counselors for the K-3 program and applications can be found at www.bristolborough.com. Councilman Tony Devine, a teacher in the Neshaminy School District, volunteered his services to work with any special education students.
Gesualdi praised the borough for being open to the collaboration with the community center.
I“I believe Bristol will be the only town in Bucks County that provides free summer camp for grades K-12, and that’s what I call raising the bar,” Gesualdi said.
She is referring to the motto adopted by the Bristol Borough Economic Development Committee, founded in August and comprised of borough business people, professionals and citizens who have been working on ways to market the town to developments businesses, residents and visitors.
The Bristol Borough 21st Century Community Learning Center is an after-school program that provides children who go to school in the borough with academic assistance, music, art, sports and other free activities. The programs run on federal grants, but the center’s advisory oversight committee is looking for ways to make them selfsupporting once the grants run out.