Summer Arts and Leadership Camp

 

Mission: It is the mission of Summer Arts and Leadership Camp to provide a safe and structured summer, free of charge, to students identified as homeless or at-risk of homelessness in the Missoula community.

 

Who We Serve: SALC serves students who have been identified as homeless or at-risk of homelessness as defined by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. We provide services to students entering 4th grade through entering 8th grade, roughly ages 9 through 14.

 

Who Qualifies: The McKinney-Vento Act defines homelessness as the following:

  1. Families doubled-up with friends or families. This includes families in which the children and parent(s) are staying in different places.
  2. Families or individuals staying in parks or camping areas because thy have no permanent housing.
  3. Children or youth placed in foster homes due to lack of shelter space.
  4. Families staying in motels or shelters, including but not limited to the Poverello Center’s Joseph Residence, YWCA Transitional Housing Program and the Salvation Army’s Gateway Program.
  5. Families staying in “safe house” because returning to their permanent homes would mean returning to a situation involving domestic violence. This includes YWCA’s Domestic Violence Shelter.
  6. Transfer students who enrolled in Missoula County Public Schools District 1 schools this year and/or previously attended more than one school during the previous school year.
  7. Students who have attended multiple schools in the last few years due to family circumstances.
  8. Students whom are “at risk” of homeless ness or receiving Title 1 services.

 

Program Description: The Summer Arts and Leadership Camp (SALC) is run through Women’s Opportunity & Resource Development, Inc. (WORD) and is a cost free summer program for homeless youth and youth at-risk of homelessness in the Missoula community. The children we serve are typically below peer level in academics, social skills and have spent great personal resources coping with transient housing and the attending family and school chaos. We view the campers that participate in our program as strong youth who have overcome many obstacles; they are survivors. The next step is to help youth move from surviving to thriving.

 

SALC is partnered with the Missoula County Public School District #1 and run out of a local elementary school each summer. SALC provides busing as well as breakfast and lunch for each student on a daily basis. Our goal is to provide a safe, structured and fun summer for the Missoula youth community who would otherwise be unable to afford access to such programming. We also work in conjunction wit educators from the Pablo Cultural Center on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to provide a week of traditional native games and indigenous life ways programming, as approximately 30% of our students are American Indian. We run a variety of activities which include music, fine arts, traditional crafts and outdoor games, with several larger trips such as whitewater rafting, horseback riding, backpacking and rock climbing. Our focus over the last 3 years has been the expansion of our wilderness programming, Next Step Wilderness. We strive to offer the best possible programs to our students.

 

Joshua Lisbon

SALC Camp Coordinator

NSW Program Coordinator

WORD Lead Middle School Teacher

jlisbon@wordin.org