photograph courtesy rising together foundation
Time away from school during the summer months puts kids at risk of learning loss, the so-called “summer slide.” Students from lower-income as well as Black and Latinx families are more likely to have greater learning loss than their white or more affluent counterparts, and this leads to a more pronounced achievement gap for these students. When confronted with these facts, Judd Peters started the SLAM Summer Academy in 2004, which has since grown to become the Rising Together Foundation with the tagline “Bridging the Gap for Education and Opportunity.”
“For many kids in our city, getting a good education is a way out of poverty,” Peters says. “When I think about the opportunities I had as a kid and my friends had in the summertime, if we needed academic help, we’d get it. We’d go to sports camp; a lot of my friends went to overnight camps. But a lot of kids in our communities don’t have those opportunities.”
photograph courtesy rising together foundation
SLAM Summer Academy is meant to offer those opportunities for underserved Memphis-area students for a fraction of the cost. The full-day, three-week summer camp offers academic enrichment (language arts, math, and technology), leadership development, public speaking, financial literacy, and physical fitness for rising first- through ninth-graders. The day starts at 8 a.m. with learning, then a good lunch, and then as Peters says, “They play, play, play” until 5 p.m. They might also do some yoga or learn some self-defense moves in a karate class, but no matter what, the campers are always engaged and excited.
“Most of the kids think that the only way to make money is through YouTube,” Johnson says. “They don’t realize that there are other ways.” — JaHyne Johnson
photograph courtesy rising together foundation
By the end of the day, the campers are tuckered out; Peters says parents will send him pictures of their kids sitting upright in the backseat of the car, with their faces leaned against the window, mouth agape and snoring. “One year, when we were doing it, one of the students was talking to me and his mom,” Peters says, “and he said, ‘Mom, SLAM is what school would be like if they put the kids in charge.’ And I thought that was a great compliment because they work really hard.”
Equally dedicated are the teachers at the camp, who, Peters says, have been working with him since the start. They come from Memphis University School, St. Mary’s Episcopal School, Christ Methodist Day School, and the public schools in the area. Meanwhile, the counselors are former campers themselves. “They’re great mentors for our kids to look up to,” Peters says. “They wear a lot of hats and do a great job.”
JaHyne “JJ” Johnson, now a junior majoring in chemistry at Vanderbilt, attended SLAM as a rising fifth-grader and continued going for many summers afterward. He says that the camp challenged him and motivated him towards academic success, and he still remembers the lessons he learned in the financial literacy classes — lessons he hopes that the current campers latch on to.
One of these classes teaches campers how to be millionaires by the time they’re 50. “Most of the kids think that the only way to make money is through YouTube,” Johnson says. “They don’t realize that there are other ways.”
photograph courtesy rising together foundation
During every class at the camp, Johnson and his fellow counselors help out the teachers since the content the 30-plus students learn differs from student to student, depending on their age and where they are in their learning process. “With some kids, I have to sit down with them and help them find the verbs and the nouns in sentences,” Johnson says. “It can be frustrating sometimes; it takes a lot of patience.”
“We want to go to every part of Shelby County and provide the same opportunities that students in the best private schools have in the summertime.” — Judd Peters
But this individualized approach undoubtedly makes each camper feel valued while also giving them the academic assistance and encouragement that they might not have access to otherwise. Johnson says that he even has a special handshake that he does with the younger kids, and at the very least, he makes sure to give each one of them a high-five whenever he sees them. He also enjoys playing basketball with the older campers; he says they have quite the repartee and lots of inside jokes.
This year, Rising Together hosted sessions at Immanuel Lutheran School and Pursuit of God Church in June and July, but the organization hopes to offer sessions at more host schools next year and is already planning for next summer’s activities. “We want to go to every part of Shelby County and provide the same opportunities that students in the best private schools have in the summertime,” Peters says.
For more information or to donate to the Rising Together Foundation, visit risingtogetherfoundation.com.
