Clearwater, FL – November 10, 2020 – Community Tampa Bay is excited to announce their recognition as a 2020 New York Life Foundation Excellence in Summer Learning Award winner. Community Tampa Bay joins two other stellar programs from across the country that stand out for designing innovative, diverse, and experiential learning opportunities for students in all grade levels. The awards are presented annually by the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), the only national nonprofit exclusively focused on closing the achievement gap by increasing access to high-quality summer learning opportunities.
Community Tampa Bay was honored for ANYTOWN®, a residential youth leadership program. ANYTOWN® provides a safe space where high school-aged students gain education and training on how to interrupt prejudice and move toward a community free from all forms of discrimination. By allowing youth to engage in safe cross-cultural interactions with shared power, ANYTOWN® promotes empathy that mitigates systemic prejudicial attitudes learned from individual and collective environments.
“Community Tampa Bay and ANYTOWN® exist to cultivate hope in people of all ages that we can – and will – realize a community that is free from all forms of discrimination through doing the uncomfortable and hard work that is necessary to achieve this vision,” said Tammy Briant Spratling, Chief Executive Officer of Community Tampa Bay.
The annual awards recognize summer programs demonstrating excellence in accelerating
academic achievement and promoting healthy development for low-income children and youth, as measured by the Summer Learning Program Quality Assessment (SLPQA). Winning programs demonstrate exemplary practices in overall programming, including professional development for program staff and collaboration with community partners in fulfilling shared goals for student and family engagement.
Among the other 2020 Excellence in Summer Awards Honorees are:
● Camp EDMO (Northern California, Sacramento Region, and San Francisco Bay Area) where leaders take a holistic view of the kids and communities they serve while fostering a spirit of fun, creativity, and individuality that allow all campers to actively engage in design thinking and hands-on learning opportunities.
● Young Audiences of Maryland, Inc. (YA)- Summer Arts & Learning Academy (Baltimore, MD) where youth have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend a summer learning from the best teachers and teaching artists Maryland has to offer.
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About Community Tampa Bay
Community Tampa Bay envisions a community free from discrimination in which every individual is treated with dignity and respect, with regard to their race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability, faith, and or age. Community Tampa Bay cultivates inclusive leaders to change communities through dialogue and cross-cultural interaction. CTB affects positive change by training and supporting leaders across identities who influence culture and interrupt systemic institutional discrimination through personal relationships, advocacy, and representation.
About the National Summer Learning Association
The National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) is the only national nonprofit exclusively focused on closing the achievement gap by increasing access to high-quality summer learning opportunities. NSLA recognizes and disseminates what works in summer learning, develops and delivers community capacity-building offerings, and convenes and empowers key actors to embrace summer learning as a solution for equity and excellence in education. For more information, visit www.summerlearning.org