St. Joseph Services is an organization that partners with San Miguel School, Gary Comer Campus to provide various youth programs and adult education services.

This past July, St. Joseph Services hosted their 4th annual Summer Camp at the Gary Comer Campus, providing San Miguel students and neighborhood youth ages 10-14 a fun summer in a safe environment.  This four week camp is designed to provide youth a fun alternative to enhance their self image and world view through enaging activities, field trips, sports, games, swimming, and classes on science, environmental awareness, and nutrition.

Many of the children in the surrounding community have limited access to safe and positive activities available to them, or would otherwise stay indoors during summer break.  St. Joseph Services also sees this camp as preventative by teaching and modeling healthy behaviors and attitudes while keeping kids off the streets.

Check out the photos from the camp on our Flickr page here!

Families pay only $60 for this four-week long camp, and scholarships are also available to families who need financial support.  St. Joseph Services uses funds raised through grants, individual donors and the Daughters of Charity, the organization that started St. Joseph Services, to subsidize the cost of this program.

SJS's goal is to keep youth engaged with a wide variety of activities that will challenge them to grow socially and academically.  Three fieldtrips a week are planned to enable them to explore the environment around them which will give them opportunity to expand their perspective to life beyond the "hood."

Maria Hubeny, St. Joseph Services Site Coordinator, says that  "the camp is very appreciated because the kids get to experience some awesome field trips and get to do some really fun stuff!"

Campers traveled to an urban farm on the south side, learned to row with Loyola Academy, spent a day at the beach, visited the Chicago History Museum, and had fun at Millennium Park!  In addition to field trips, campers also participated in physical activities through sports and weekly daily community clean-up, as well as learned about health and nutrition through PCC Wellness.

For more information on St. Joseph Services, please visit their website at http://www.stjosephservices.org/.