South Boston Outreach Summer
PBHA's South Boston Outreach Summer, or SBOS, is a Summer Urban Program camp serving the youth of South Boston for seven weeks each summer.
APPLICATION INFORMATION:
SBOS 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.
Photo by Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer
About SBOS
PBHA’s South Boston Outreach Summer, or SBOS, offers an academic summer day camp for young people ages 6–13 from South Boston for seven weeks each summer. Like all of our Summer Urban Program camps, SOBS 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. SBOS strives to empower youth through hands-on enrichment activities that emphasize academic confidence, conflict resolution, interdependence, prevention of risk-taking behaviors, and respect for diversity. The program places a significant focus on curricula that utilize substance abuse prevention and service learning to support the academic achievement and positive youth development of our campers and combat historically widespread issues endured by the South Boston community.SBOS began in 1989 when Theresa Finn, a Harvard student who had grown up in South Boston, founded an adult tutoring program for mothers. She had volunteered at Julie’s Family Learning Program, a neighborhood-based family support and education program, when she realized that more programming was needed, particularly during the summer. She turned to Suzanne Panico, another Harvard student from South Boston, to create a summer program that would allow the women being tutored to attend full-time programming by alleviating the need for day care during summer vacation. Since its founding, SBOS has provided a continuum of service to the residents in and around South Boston’s three public housing developments: Mary Ellen McCormack, Old Colony, and West Broadway.
WORK AT SBOS
SBOS, 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 SBOS.
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, SBOS 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 SBOS 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.