BSTRONG Summer Program
The Black Scholars Together Reclaiming Our Natural Greatness (BSTRONG) summer program is an extracurricular summer program that improves academic outcomes for Black-identified youth via workshops and civic engagement opportunities. Students gain historical knowledge and community organizing skills that translate to academic excellence and life-long civic engagement.
The BSTRONG Summer Program is an immersive and engaging day camp for 14-18 year olds that runs from July to late August each year.
During the summer program, students engage with Black community members from a variety of disciplines that intersect with environmental, social, emotional, and racial justice. Students also find connections with Black civic leaders, mentors, and artists who are actively engaged with the Black Liberation Movement.
The BSTRONG Summer Learning Hubs prioritizes students of African Ancestry. Through our curriculum, students gain historical knowledge of disappearing Black culture, community organizing skills, and a foundation for life-long civic engagement through walking tours, art projects, and storytelling.
For the 2024 Summer Program BEAM is partnering with MESO youth program to provide creative entrepreneurship programming. In this part of the Summer Curriculum, MESO staff will mentor Black youth who create products to sell at our annual block party and help students understand business and the power of self sufficiency.
Students receive a stipend for their participation in the BSTRONG Summer Program.
Student engagement and outcomes from the BSTRONG Summer Program have demonstrated that BEAM programming provides students with a critical and otherwise unmet educational experience and a community-building role.
Important dates:
Orientation is mandatory and will be held on July 1 & 2
From July 8th - August 16, 2024 students will be in program activities Tuesday - Friday 9 am - 3 pm.
There will be an overnight camping trip July 19 - 21th.
Students will present their work from the summer at BEAM’s annual Block Party on August 16th.
BSTRONG 2024 SUMMER PROGRAM PARTNERS
The 2024 BSTRONG SUMMER PROGRAM IS GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY
In the BSTRONG Summer Program,
In the BSTRONG Summer Program, students develop:
Positive cultural identities via research about the Black experience of local Portland elders.
Personal responsibility, critical thinking, and the leadership skills needed to become social change agents.
Planning skills, organization habits, and financial literacy taught by Black financial groups, in addition to Black philanthropic awareness.
The ability to apply power analysis techniques as they examine systems and the built environment to understand how it works to oppress “the other”.
A new relationship to education that is centered on youth voice, participation, and craftsmanship.
Student participants show significant increases in:
Cultural knowledge and cultural pride.
Functional knowledge of personal planning and community organizing methods.
Enhanced academic performance.
Past BSTRONG Summer Programs
2023
The 2023 BSTRONG Summer program focused on:
the policy and history of tobacco commercialization targeted specifically to Black communities,
its relationship to slave labor and agricultural production, and
how we archive its history for our self-reclamation.
This program was a collaboration between three Learning Hubs: the BSTRONG Learning Hub, Feed’em Freedom Farm, and Mayo House ARTchives.
