Melissa and her 14-year-old son Ethan, who uses his iPad to communicate, have struggled with isolation this year. Extreme Kids & Crew is helping families like theirs build a community through the universal language of play. Hear how Extreme Kids has helped with Ethan’s focus, then join us as we strive to keep families connected.
Thanks to your wonderful support, we raised more than $12,000 in the Extreme-A-Thon! Check out a compilation of highlights from the past month as our community broke out of its shell and got creative to raise money for Extreme Kids & Crew.
This summer, we teamed up with SEED Impact, an organization which helps nonprofits assess and strengthen their work, to evaluate our summer camp program and the impact it had on the children who participated. Being our first foray into synchronous distance learning and playing, the results were encouraging and will greatly inform our work going forward.
Alt text: Pictured is the cover of the Summer Camp Impact Report. The cover features a young Black girl at an Extreme Kids program wearing a blue shirt with her hands waving in the air. At the top, white text on a blue background reads “Extreme Kids & Crew 2020 Virtual Summer Camp. Analysis & Report by SEED Impact.” At the bottom is the Extreme Kids & Crew logo.
On Wednesday, October 14, we welcomed a handful of self-advocates and experts on race and disability to talk about intersectionality, what disability justice looks like, how children can advocate for themselves, and much more. You can watch the whole discussion above, and you can read a transcript of the conversation and learn more about the panelists here.
From Authority Magazine:
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
My work as board chair at Extreme Kids and Crew has been very exciting and rewarding. We went from having one space in a public school to three sensory gyms in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, all in fairly short order. To go from these really physical spaces to a fully virtual footprint after the pandemic closures was a massive change. As an organization that creates community for disabled kids and their people, strategizing about how to most effectively reach out online and create programming and events that interested, served and expanded these connections at such an isolating time- that has been exciting. I am so impressed with our Executive Director Caitlin Cassaro and the whole staff for not only meeting the challenge but thriving in this new world.
For individuals with disabilities, isolation can be especially devastating to mental health and education. Organizations like Extreme Kids & Crew are overcoming this reality by bringing their supportive network online, so no one feels alone.
Classroom space is at a premium right now, and so in order to adhere to social distancing protocols we have moved out of our beloved host schools – P.S. 15, P.S. 71, and The Sheridan Academy of Young Leaders. We are sad to leave our play spaces, but we are not leaving YOU or the communities who ARE Extreme Kids & Crew.
We expect our in-person programs to be up and running when it is safe to do so, and we will update you again on our plans in November. Right now, we're thrilled to see all of our families online, and we're focused on providing engaging and diverse virtual programs. Know this: The space may be changing, but the mission is not. Through Powerful Parents, summer camp, Play & Create, after-school, and the rest of our programs, we remain committed to fighting against isolation and strengthening our relationships to each other.
We hope to see you and your families during virtual programs, and we'll keep you updated on our in-person programs later this fall. Stay safe.