Community Corner: Bay Area Nonprofit Encourages A Smart Summer

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - As Bay Area families gear up for summer activities, one local organization says it's important to avoid summer learning loss, or "brain drain."

"Basically kids will forget," Ed Caballero is Executive Director and Co-founder of Edventure More, a nonprofit enrichment organization that includes summer camps for kids pre-K through 8th grade all over the Bay Area.

"When they're out of school they will forget their math, reading, science skills and unfortunately what happens is if they don't keep their minds active that could account for up to 2 to 3 months of academic progress that's lost in those summer months."

KCBS' Connie C. Kim interviews Ed Caballero, Executive Director of Edventure More:

Edventure More offers summer camps and programs that focus on "21st century learning."

Caballero explains how in this economy and global environment, it's not enough to study the 3 R's (reading, writing, arithmetic) but now students need to be able to collaborate with others, use technology, have good socialization skills, team work, critical thinking, creative thinking, and be innovators to succeed in this new century.

"As the years went on we realized that we were part of a national movement," Caballero discusses how the decade-old nonprofit has developed over the years. It wasn't just "a bonus that you get to go to camp but it's a necessity and it's a necessity to go to a camp that keeps your child's mind learning and active."

Edventure More's summer camps include EdMo, for elementary-aged kids, that revolves around building life skills like curiosity, confidence and kindness through science, art, animation and outdoor recreational activities.

EdTech for middle school kids focuses on digital media and technology building life skills like, creativity, collaboration, leadership, and awareness through "things like making your own movies, making animations, doing graphic design, designing your own video game and again the focus of that is getting kids to not just become passive users of technology but to actually become the active makers of technology."

The nonprofit also offers scholarships for families that can't afford to send their kids to summer camp. Volunteers and donations and always welcome.

For more information visit www.edventuremore.org.

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