Goshen College receives $1 million for summer camps program



GOSHEN, IND.—Goshen College has received a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., to be used toward developing and implementing summer camps for community youth. The grant will help build sustainable programming over the three-year grant period and beyond. “We are appreciative to have received the grant so that we can offer meaningful summer camp experiences for youth in the community for many years to come,” says Erika Buhring, executive director of the college’s Center for Community Engagement, which is giving leadership and oversight to the camps. The camps will provide children and youth of different ages expanded learning opportunities in the arts, sciences and communications that build social, emotional and academic skills, and it will nurture a college-going mindset. With the grant funding, camps will cost only $50 or less per person, making them more accessible to all students. The college is partnering with youth-serving organizations in the community to develop the camps and recruit campers. Lilly Endowment made the grant through Indiana Youth Programs on Campus, its statewide initiative designed to help Indiana colleges and universities in their efforts to create new, or expand and enhance, existing high-quality, on-campus programs for Hoosier youth, aged 5 to 18.

—Goshen College