The last day of school is just around the corner, and while break means sunny days filled with activities for lots of kids, many children living in rural poverty lose access to resources.
That is why Connecticut-based organization Save the Children is working to connect kids in rural areas across the country to books and learning materials this summer.
From literacy and math, to robotics and STEM, kids in Save the Children summer camps will be flexing their learning muscles over break.
“Summer’s that time, while some students have the opportunity to get ahead, many children in rural communities are falling two and three months behind their peers,” Shane Garver, head of program design and impact for Save the Children U.S., said.
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The camps, set up in partnership with rural school districts across America, aim to prevent summer slip. Save the Children reports kids living in rural poverty can lose up to 34% of what they learned during the school year. That is because for these kids, the last day of school can mean it is the last day to read and access art supplies. It could be the final day of playing and exercising with friends, and the end of regular meals, for months.
“There's not a public library,” Garver said. “And their families lack adequate transportation. So they have to make tough choices with the gas money, the transportation they do have available.”
While the organization is running these enrichment camps across the country, they say the situation locally is less dire, which is why they are not running the camps in our state.
Local
According to Save the Children’s 2018 Childhood Report, Connecticut is one of the few states with more children living in urban poverty, and it is actually the state with the lowest rate of rural child poverty, at 7.8%.
Nonetheless, the report finds one out of 13 children is growing up in rural poverty. On top of that, 12.6% of Connecticut kids in rural areas drop out of high school, and 16.7% are dealing with malnutrition.
Save the Children, now highlighting the need to keep these kids from falling through the cracks right in our own backyard.
“We can't overlook that one in 13 kids in Connecticut are still living in rural poverty,” Garver said. “While there are struggles for children in urban communities, there are many other organizations working in those communities to get children access to summer reading programs in the local library, and other enrichment opportunities. It's simply not the case in rural communities.”
