Keylatch Summer Program
PBHA's Keylatch Summer Program is a Summer Urban Program camp serving youth in Boston's South End and Lower Roxbury.
APPLICATION INFORMATION:
Keylatch costs $125 for the first child and $100 for each additional sibling. Preference is given to returning campers and children who have particular academic or financial need for the program. Families should submit one camper application for each child who wishes to enroll in camp.
Staff Contact Information:
Tati Burgos
tatiana@pbha.org
617-821-6967
Student Director Contact Information:
ksp@pbha.org
617-249-3571
About Keylatch
PBHA's Keylatch Summer Program (KSP) offers an affordable and engaging summer camp to young people living in Boston’s South End and Lower Roxbury communities. Like all of our Summer Urban Program camps, Keylatch Summer engages campers in mornings of academic enrichment, afternoons of educational field trips, and artistic, cultural, and service-learning workshops throughout the week, along with two overnight camping trips and a day-long final trip. In addition to an academic focus on math and literacy, Keylatch works with campers to explore their community and collaborate with other neighborhoods that have traditionally been perceived as rivals.The Keylatch Committee, of which Keylatch Summer is a major part, has provided consistent, year-round programming for youth in the South End since 1984 at the request of residents, students and parents. These stakeholders worked together to expand beyond the after-school tutoring program for children from the Villa Victoria community to also include a summer programming component. Since then, the program has expanded to include children from all areas of the South End and Lower Roxbury community, particularly six public housing developments where access to resources and support is difficult: the Villa Victoria, Cathedral, Castle Square, Lenox, Camden, and Tent City housing developments. As the community evolves and responds to different pressures, Keylatch will continue to adapt to the needs of the community in order to continue to work closely with youth and their families to empower community members and create social change. The 30 years of Keylatch Summer history in the South End have been characterized by safe, enriching, and academically oriented programming, as well as by a commitment to build community leadership.
WORK AT Keylatch
Keylatch, like all Summer Urban Program camps, is run by college students who serve as directors and senior counselors, or teachers, in the camp.Directors oversee all camp operations, working through the spring and summer to train and supervise camp staff, manage finances, and ensure high program quality. Learn more about directing Keylatch.
Senior counselors manage a classroom of 10 children throughout the summer, implementing a self-designed academic curriculum, supervising field trips and community service projects, and supporting the operations of their camp. Learn more about working as a senior counselor.
In addition to its college-age staff, Keylatch employs high school students as junior counselors. Teens partner with a senior counselor to co-teach a class and participate in leadership workshops throughout the summer. The majority of SUP’s junior counselors once attended the same camp in which they work; many junior counselors at Keylatch were once campers in the program. Learn more about working as a junior counselor.
This Camp must comply with regulations of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and be licensed by the Cambridge Board of Health.