Several Long Beach-based nonprofit organizations, faith-based leaders, community stakeholders and the City of Long Beach have again joined together to actively engage youth in ways that build and support positive youth development initiatives and to address youth violence prevention through the Summer Night Lights (SNL) project, a ten-week summer program designed for at-risk youth, as well as their families.
Targeted in key neighborhoods in Long Beach where youth violence is most prevalent, the program will take place at two sites in the central area of the city and one site on the west end, which are all located within The California Endowment (TCE) Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Long Beach Central Area Map Violence Reduction and Youth Development Zones.
In 2010, The California Endowment embarked on a new, 10-year strategic direction— building healthy communities with the goal being to support the development of communities where kids and youth are healthy, safe, and ready to learn. In the same year, The Endowment identified the communities in which to make financial investments, and Long Beach rose to the top— specifically central and west Long Beach.
In 2010 the Long Beach BHC youth collaborative and concerned community leaders had numerous meetings to develop a strategy to address youth violence issues during the critical summer period. The Summer Night Lights project, based upon other models of summer programming, was funded by The Endowment as a local strategy towards the ten outcomes under The California Endowment’s BHC: to keep children and families safe from violence in their homes and neighborhoods and for communities to support healthy youth development.
One new component to the program which will kick off the Summer Night Lights project is the “Turn Up the Lights” Campaign Safe Passages Initiative. This new campaign encourages and engages Long Beach residents who live near the three Summer Night Lights parks to be vigilant in turning on their porch lights to help ensure that youth and families get home safely in the evening after SNL program hours.
This year’s SNL, which will operate Monday through Friday now through Sept. 9, between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, will provide an array of stimulating and organized activities for at-risk youth, including expanded programming, free food, after-school activities, athletic leagues, arts & culture initiatives, parent-empowerment workshops, fun family night activities, health screenings and neighborhood improvement projects for youth and parents living in Long Beach’s most crime-ridden communities.
Locations will be:
Martin Luther King Jr. Park
Petrolane Boys & Girls Club
1920 Lemon Ave.
(562) 599-2916
Drake Park
951 Maine Ave.
(562) 570-4405
Admiral Kidd Park
Boys and Girls Club—West Side
1835 West Willard Ave.
(562) 435-1621
