Brian Wright and Reagan Fresnel are transforming elementary summer learning through Camp HBCYouth, bringing the powerful legacy of Historically Black Colleges and Universities directly to young minds. Operating on HBCU campuses including Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University, their program has impacted over 600 elementary-aged youth while serving more than 40,000 meals.
With strategic partnerships including a $20,000 Walmart grant and Amazon Access support, the co-founders are addressing academic summer slide while building social-emotional skills in an environment where only 5% of Black youth typically have summer camp access.
What sparked the idea for Camp HBCYouth and how did your HBCU backgrounds influence its creation?
Reagan Fresnel: I’m a proud graduate of Spelman College class of 2018. The idea of wanting to extend the values of an HBCU that were instilled upon me during my time at Spelman of Black excellence, community, those types of values. We definitely wanted to create a pipeline for elementary age students, earlier on in their lives, to be exposed to the same power that HBCUs hold, and not just wait until high school to learn about it.
How would you describe the mission for Camp HBCYouth?
Reagan Fresnel: The mission of Camp HBCYouth is to grant that early college exposure to elementary age students. We are also an academic day camp designed to help children avoid a summer slide academically, and then only 5% of Black youth attend summer camp during those critical summer months. We are directly increasing the percentage of youth that have a summer camp experience, but using our HBCUs to do so and to really bridge the gap between the community.
This summer’s partnership with Walmart brought a $20,000 grant and a mural project. What was the vision behind combining public arts with youth education?
Reagan Fresnel: We’re excited to partner with Walmart in order to really promote arts, art education for youth. This whole week we worked with Artist Lavan Wright and students were able to really tap into their self-expression and really visually create a beautiful mural that reflects their own HBCU experience this summer that reflects the personal things that mean so much to them, whether it be their family, their friends, the community aspect of it. But then even the highlights of all things that are fun to them during the summer.
What kind of growth and changes are you seeing in the children who attend the camp?
Reagan Fresnel: Social, emotional learning is really big for us. We take it back to the old school days of summer camp, so youth are not on laptops all day long. We do coding and things like that, but we are really trying to make sure we are building their social skills, how they interact with one another. Structured play is really big for us as well, and learning while playing is something big that we’ve seen a lot on the academic side.
We are designed to help children avoid the summer slide academically, so each week is a different theme. They are covering topics ranging from Black history and African diaspora to all things STEAM, creative arts and even wellness. They also receive tennis lessons. They definitely get a well-rounded host of programming throughout the summer months.
Why is it important that Camp HBCYouth is hosted on HBCU campuses like Spelman, Morehouse and Clark Atlanta?
Brian Wright: It’s extremely important for the kids to have early access to a higher education, and as well as just being around a college with kids that look like them. So it’s extremely important.
How do you ensure that children from underserved communities are fully included?
Reagan Fresnel: We do offer our version of scholarships called Camperships, where our program at large is already set to be 60% more affordable than most programs surrounding us or in the area, and that’s across all cities and states that we are located in. So we already have lower tuition fees, but this premium camp experience, our camperships, are for families that qualify where they can come to camp with a discounted rate or just completely free. This year alone, we gave out over $100,000 in camperships.
Brian Wright: Our premier partner, Amazon Access helped us get the money to have the kids in their surrounding neighborhoods able to attend camp.
What’s your dream for Camp HBCYouth over the next five years?
Reagan Fresnel: We would love to be on every HBCU campus, or as many as possible continuing our work. It is our goal under our foundation, the HBCU Foundation. Camp HBCYouth has been our flagship and premier program that we have launched so far, but we do have plans on eventually developing middle and high school programming so that we can really create a pipeline. So from elementary, middle and high and hopefully all the way to HBCUs, really track students all the way through.
How do you approach building partnerships while staying connected to the camp’s roots?
Brian Wright: First, we look to see if the mission of the brand makes sense for us and what we’re trying to do, and then we just network. Our premier sponsor, Amazon Access, was such a great fit, because Amazon Access is more affordable for people that can’t afford the regular programs and products that Amazon has. So that made perfect sense with kids not being able to afford summer camp to combine and join in that effort to help kids attend summer camp.
Why is art and expression so important for Black youth development?
Reagan Fresnel: I think art and creative expression is so important for our youth in particular. We always say that the children in our program are very colorful, and so they love to express themselves in a host of other ways. But how about we give them a different way to do so, and through the arts is a perfect way for them to. Sometimes it helps them with whatever they may be having at home, whatever the problems are.
This is a calming time for them to be able to express whatever their feelings are in a healthy way. But then it also allows them to balance out their day, we don’t want this to feel like school, we want them to still have fun. A perfect way to do so is through art and paint and pastels, and working with the artists that we had this week was the perfect outlet for many of them.
What do you hope each camper takes away from Camp HBCYouth?
Reagan Fresnel: The number one thing is, what is an HBCU. They leave learning what an HBCU is, hopefully, they want to attend an HBCU one day. While we are the academic camp, and we do all of that programming, we also specialize in the HBCU experience for kids. So whether it’s exposing them to the fraternities, the sororities on campus, the different highlights that these campuses have to offer with other departments.
For example, at Spelman, their cosmetic science and food science departments are brand new departments, and we were able to work with them to come and do food science and cosmetic science programming. So exposure is everything, and I think that’s another really big takeaway for them at the end of our summer.
For more information about Camp HBCYouth, visit camphbcyouth.com or follow them on social media at Camp HBCYouth.
