ACTIVITIES

Summer Camp & Future Stars

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RED AUERBACH YOUTH FOUNDATION SUMMER CAMP PROGRAM

Established in 1993, the Summer Camp Program provides grants to local organizations to allow deserving kids to attend summer camp or participate in other summer recreational opportunities. Over the years, the Foundation has granted more than $800,000 through this program.

The Red Auerbach Future Stars Sports and Leadership Summer Program is a free summer program, started in 2008, that aims to develop young leaders and provide a safe and healthy alternative to gang involvement for at risk youth in Boston.  The Program strives to reduce youth violence in one of the cities most violent neighborhoods through a curriculum that incorporates guest speakers, group discussions, and sports activities.  Each summer, over one hundred youth, ages 8 to 14 participate in extensive sports, leadership training and gang prevention activities during the four to six week program.  The program is modeled after the Future Stars Sports and Leadership Summer Program in Lowell, a model that has been successful in serving the Southeast Asian and Hispanic community and helped reduced youth violence in Lowell since 1998 and was cited in 1999 as a model private public partnership by President Clinton's Back to School Program and cited in the Brookings Institution's book   Serving Our Children's Future:  New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence  as well as numerous TV spots and newspaper articles.

Matt Wolf, one of the founders of the Lowell program and its Director of Programs from 2000 to 2002, developed the Boston program.  Matt suggested to the Foundation that we use the Lowell camp model in a Boston neighborhood.  Matt worked with Boston's Police Commissioner, Ed Davis, who was the Chief of Police in Lowell when the Lowell program was implemented.  Commissioner Davis has first- hand knowledge of its value and was enthusiastic about a similar program in Boston.