The summer of 2017 has been an extraordinary time in the life of Philadelphia Youth Basketball. Building upon the successes of two years of our Middle School Partnership Program and one prior year of our Collegiate Summer Camp Series, we are proud to report that this summer’s programming exceeded even our own expectations. Here is why:
- We doubled the number of participants in our Collegiate Summer Camp Series from 312 to 488. Our camp locations this summer included Chestnut Hill College, Drexel University, LaSalle University, Philadelphia University, St. Joseph’s University, and Temple University.
- We improved the quality of our academic program with the addition of our sport and society “social justice” modules which empowered our student-athletes to think critically, deliberate, and write about an array of high profile issues. Our academic “power hour” was interactive and dynamic, and was the perfect complement to the basketball, health and nutrition, strength and conditioning, and positive coaching components of our camp day.
- We hosted several motivational speakers including Nate Blackwell, Mayor Jim Kenney, Marc Zumoff, Sam Grannum, Michael Heller, and PYB board member Jessica Alexander.
- We included two exciting field trips – one to Archbishop Carroll and a second to a private home for basketball, swimming, and a BBQ with Raheem and Ralph from Dr. Jerkinstein.
- We added a camp week at the Barrett Playground in Logan, led by PYB Coach Marvin Kilgore, to serve an additional 184 young people from the community in which we will be building our state-of-the-art center.
- We sent a delegation of 4 young people and 8 adults (coaches, volunteers, and a board member) to rural Jamaica to help staff a camp for 643 young people, under the leadership of the Philadelphia Men’s Basketball League. This experience is part of our emerging youth leadership development program, which has both a local and global dimension. Read more about our PYB’s experience in Jamaica and our emerging Local and International Youth Leadership Initiative HERE.
Our summer success would not have been possible without a large group of extraordinary interns, our staff team, our board of directors, a cadre of volunteers, and an array of generous contributors. We are grateful!