What 64 Children Taught Me

_{Reflections from Zahra Harmon Cohran, Youth Outreach Engagement Associate, Sunshine Gospel Ministries}

This summer was my first time helping coordinate a summer camp from scratch. I knew we wanted to create a place where youth could learn, play, build relationships, and experience new things. What I didn't fully know was how the community would respond or how much the youth would teach me along the way.

As soon as our registration opened, eighty-seven youth from 61 families registered for our Summer Blast Day Camp. We eventually had to cap enrollment as we welcomed 64 first- through eighth-grade youth from 34 elementary schools across Chicago. Some families were already connected to Sunshine. Others lived farther away and had never participated in our after-school program. What we had, I realized, was “a willing community and eager youth.”

We packed a lot into those six weeks. There were cooking classes, basketball, baseball, swimming, theater, costume design, art therapy, and entrepreneurship. There were educational field trips and academics, including math, reading, creative writing, geography, U.S. history, and African American history. But one of my favorite memories is also one of the simplest, and that was the day we took the youth to the park at the Obama Presidential Center, and they played for hours. Watching them that day captured one of the biggest lessons of the summer for me: less is more. “We didn't have to impress the kids,” I remember thinking. “All we had to do was engage them.”

Give youth an opportunity to participate. Give them people who are paying attention. Give them room to connect, and they will often take it from there. I watched that happen throughout the summer. Youth formed friendships. They had disagreements. They apologized. They learned to work together. Some of our quieter youth began participating more. We saw social and emotional development from the beginning of camp to the end.
And sometimes we had to get creative. If you got yourself into trouble, there was a good chance you were getting a worksheet from us. You were going to learn something either way. We talked about why apologies matter. We talked about kindness. We gave youth opportunities to correct their mistakes and try again. We tried very hard not to define a youth by a bad moment.

Then I heard what the parents were seeing.

At the end of the summer, in early August, we gathered with camp families and community members for our annual Block Party. By then, I knew what the summer had looked like from our side. I knew the planning. The pivots. The long days. The laughter. The corrections. The field trips. The relationships. What moved me was hearing how families had experienced those same six weeks.

Kenya had a seven-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old grandson in camp. When she talked about Sunshine, she didn't start with our activities. She talked about our people. “I love how the staff shows affection to them,” she said. “The youth coordinators really care for them. It's so inspiring.”

That meant something to me because when you're in the middle of running a program, you don't always know what families are noticing. We were simply trying to care for the youth in front of us, but they noticed. Kenya's youth came home excited every day, and by the end of summer, she had already enrolled them in Sunshine's after-school program for the school year.

Then there was Nailah Nash. Her youth has been part of Sunshine's Youth Outreach programs for years. Her son is autistic, and she talked about how much the individualized attention he receives at Sunshine means to their family. “Sunshine's after-school program is very engaging. They specialize in each youth,” she said. Her family moved away from the neighborhood two years ago, but she still brings her youth back. “Sunshine has been the best after-school and summer camp by far of all that I have tried.”

When I think about families traveling beyond their immediate neighborhoods to participate in Sunshine, Nailah's words help me understand why. She isn't simply looking for somewhere for her youth to go. She has found somewhere she trusts.
The youth were not the only ones growing.

Our summer camp was coordinated by three Sunshine staff members alongside 12 Chicago youth workers. And as much as I watched our campers grow, I watched some of those young workers grow too. Alexzyia Byton is 16. She grew up attending Sunshine's programs from first through eighth grade. This summer, she came back on the other side as a youth staff member helping care for younger youth. “This is my first job and my first leadership role,” she said.

Then she said something that stayed with me: “One day, I may just build my own care center for kids too.”

There is something powerful about that circle. A youth is cared for, she grows, then one day she becomes the person doing the caring. And perhaps someday she creates a place of care for another generation.

La'Shun Matthews knows that circle too. He attended Sunshine's Youth Outreach programs from first through ninth grade before becoming a youth worker himself. By the end of this summer, he told us, “I knew like 50 new kids, and I'm impressed I can remember all the names.”