College Crusade of Rhode Island’s summer learning season starts this month, offering many local youth the opportunity to have fun and acquire new skills while school is out. The College Crusade provides ongoing college readiness and success programs and services for over 4,200 Rhode Island students in middle school, high school, and college each year. This summer’s programs, which are free for members of the organization, range from academic classes to adventure education.

 In the Spirit Summer Program, middle school students will be collaborating on six-week learning projects, and in Write on Sports, they will create sports stories and short video reports and learn interviewing and editorial skills. Other programs for middle school students include the Wheeler Summer Program, which offers a three-week hands-on forensics curriculum with a focus on critical thinking and deductive reasoning, and Math Matters, which helps students who are entering grade 9 improve their math skills and prepare for classroom success. Choices is an interactive seminar that teaches middle school students to recognize how the personal, educational, and financial decisions they make have lasting influences on what they are able to attain in the future. A popular option is the CAAP Program, a two-week program in adventure education for middle school students that improves self-esteem and develops skills in problem solving, team building, and healthy risk taking.

College Crusade high school students also have a full summer of participation ahead. In Crusade Summer Experience, they will develop skills in public speaking, team building, project planning, and leadership during a week on the campus of University of Rhode Island. In Creative College Essay Writing, they will learn how to produce a quality college essay and build writing skills that will make them more confident in their expressive abilities. In a hands-on program called Passageways, students entering grade 9 will plan how to make a successful transition to high school and be introduced to the importance of high school portfolios. Other programs for high school students are Project Open Door, a weeklong workshop in digital photography hosted by Rhode Island School of Design, and classes offered by Brown Summer High School and the Johnson & Wales University Career Exploration Program. A featured offering for high school students this summer is the Dolphin Program, a weeklong hands-on educational experience hosted by the Block Island Maritime Institute.

 The College Crusade also offers summer programs for families, including a 10-week workshop based on Dave Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance, a multimedia curriculum called Éxito Escolar that informs and motivates students and their families about higher education, and Better Money Habits, a financial literacy series offered by Bank of America. College Crusade families will have the opportunity to participate in campus tours at local colleges and universities in July and August.

The mission of The College Crusade is to increase high school graduation, college and career readiness, and college completion for youth in Rhode Island’s low-income communities. For more information, please visit www.thecollegecrusade.org.