The Bayview Summer Recreation Program seeks to promote positive youth development through enabling youth to make positive choices by confidently rejecting and withstanding the lure of negative choices in order to become valuable, contributing members of society. More specifically, the program's primary goals include the following: a) provide professional, safe and free childcare for youth from disadvantaged families largely residing on the Triangle; b) use cultural, artistic and educational programming to promote character development and positive values; c) provide youth with a sense of safety and security that extends from within the program to the surrounding neighborhood; and d) offer concerned, dedicated and qualified staff to youth so that they may form a supportive adult relationship with at least two staff or volunteers. Bayview's strategy in accomplishing these goals is to encourage children's natural curiosity to develop lifelong learning patterns by engaging them in creative, positive experiences.

The Bayview Summer Recreation Program serves youth primarily ages 7 to 18 from low to middle-income families residing on the Triangle and in neighboring communities. The population is racially diverse, including individuals of Hispanic, Black, Asian, Native American and White backgrounds. The Bayview Townhouses (source of program's principal population) serve 102 families with 87% of the heads of households born outside the United States. The Summer Recreation Program is offered within the Bayview International Center for Education and the Arts, as well as on Bayview's grounds and throughout the greater Madison and Wisconsin communities.

The Bayview Summer Recreation Program runs eight weeks during the summer. Bayview has developed its summer program around the knowledge that low to middle-income and minority families need safe, consistent, persistent educational exposure throughout the year. The summer program includes classes in the following components: arts, culture, athletics, service learning, gardening, library and computer education, recreation and more. The classes are divided and adapted to meet the particular needs and interests of elementary youth and teens. Weekly fieldtrips are offered as a reward for those youth who complete two or more hours of educational and service learning classes. Fieldtrips offer the two youth groups a chance to be together and, for the older children, a possibility to aid the younger children in making positive choices. This youth guiding youth interaction develops a sense of camaraderie between the two groups within and outside the Center.

Community based, the summer program strives to provide families with a sense of safety and security that extends from within the program to the neighborhood. In order to accomplish this, the summer program does not have an entirely "open door policy." Rather, youth that attend the summer program will attend on a daily basis previously determined by their parent/guardian. In addition, youth will be checked in by staff and released only to individuals the parent/guardian establishes beforehand; youth may walk home only after written permission has been given to the childcare staff. Because of this constant supervision and concerned partnership between parents/guardians and Bayview staff, youth become aware that their behaviors, interactions and whereatbouts are constantly monitored. They realize that they are left with little chance to engage in "unsafe" activities and that any such event that involves them will be immediately dealt with in terms of clear, consistent, logical consequences. The association of attentive parents and staff working together facilitates the transition of the youth's sense of security at the Center, where parents and staff work togethr, to the neighborhood, to home--their everyday parental-guided lives. Youth will realize that the Bayview staff and volunteers care about their wellbeing and, as a result, they will form supportive, positive relationships with non-parental adults. The program is coordinated and developed by Artsbridge Coordinator Nancy Giffey, Education & Recreation Coordinator Teri LeSage and Program Coordinator Paul Ly.

We thank the following sponsors for their generosity and ongoing support:

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