Editorial Intern
Students living in the inner city are often at a disadvantage academically, which is exactly what the nonprofit Success in Challenges is working to change with its Ron Palmer Summer Basketball and Academic Camp. The camp, scheduled for Aug. 1 to 4, uses basketball to bring in kids and help them with their academics during the summer, while infusing fun with sports.
The camp started nine years ago as a collaboration between ex-Poly High School boys basketball coach Ron Palmer and current executive director of the camp, Erroll Parker.
“I coached with [Palmer] for many years at Poly,” Parker explained, “and we decided we wanted to have this camp.”
The camp brings in over 50 kids from all over Long Beach every summer, 70 percent of whom are African-American boys, and provides them with invaluable educational help.
“The basketball is just a hook,” Parker said, “but we try to help kids in math and language arts during the summer.”
The English help focuses mainly on vocabulary building and sentence structure, Parker explained. The math starts with a pre-test that places the kids into groups, and from there they receive help in fundamentals and basic mathematics all the way to algebra and geometry.
The Long Beach Unified School District contributes $8,000 per year to pay for the meals in the Cal State University, Long Beach (CSULB) cafeteria and to help the camp hire eight Long Beach classroom teachers and six tutors— who are high school and college students— to teach the students. Additionally, CSULB provides the classroom space for the academic portion of the camp, which goes from 8am to noon.[aesop_image imgwidth=”250px” img=”https://signal-tribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-30-at-11.39.45-AM-1.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Eight Long Beach classroom teachers and six tutors are hired each summer to teach students during the Ron Palmer Summer Basketball and Academic Camp.” captionposition=”right” revealfx=”off”] After lunch, the campers spend the time until 5pm playing basketball, but it’s not just fun and games.
“We have some intramural play,” Parker explained, “but we primarily stress fundamentals: footwork, dribbling, passing, shooting and teamwork and sportsmanship.”
On top of the basketball coaching from the camp staff, the Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation facilitates one of the camp days and runs a series of activities and brings Lakers swag for the campers.
“They perform a basketball workout session and a physical-fitness session [!] for about two hours,” Parker said of the Lakers Youth Foundation.
The camp, Parker said, has been a success for the past eight years and many campers return year after year.
The cost of the camp is $100 per child. For students interested in joining, parents can contact Erroll Parker at (562) 477-2976 or email errollparker42@yahoo.com.
