Summertime is coming, but what that means depends on where you live.

For children living in neighborhoods with little money and power, summertime often brings more violence and less learning and health.    

To make summertime more fair and more fun, the Cities Project will partner with children and families and community leaders to offer educational, therapeutic, and advocacy programming three days a week between June 27th and August 17th. Summer program leaders and mentors will travel the city in a school bus, picking each child up from their doorstep to maximize safety and to include those with barriers to transportation. Summer program students will travel to DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus for science experiments, podcasting and music recording, team building activities, cooking and dance classes, and arts and crafts. They will also take field trips to places like the beach, nature preserves, the zoo, and swimming pools. And they will create community gardens in their neighborhoods in partnership with urban farmers. The summer program also provides leadership and employment opportunities for Cities Project students who have remained involved with the program into high school, our junior mentors.   

Meet the Summer Program Leaders

Jeff Hodges

Meet the Junior Mentors

More about the Cities Project  

The Cities Project provides treatment for the traumas of urban poverty while helping youth escape the cycle of poverty through education and advocacy. The Cities Project connects Chicago Public School students who are fighting poverty with university mentors and therapists to support healing, learning, and activism and to build community across our divided and unequal city. Check out some of our work at: https://www.instagram.com/thecitiesproject/  

We understand that this remains a challenging time for many. But we hope you will give your best gift to support those who have taken the worst hits here.