Newtown Community Center Director Matt Ariniello, his staff, and board are celebrating news this week that the organization has received a hefty grant to help support summer enrichment activities for youths in the community and region.

On May 23, Governor Ned Lamont and Education Commissioner Charlene M. Russell-Tucker announced that NCC was among 110 organizations in Connecticut that are being awarded more than $13 million in grants to provide learning opportunities to children during the summers of 2023 and 2024 as part of the latest round of funding under the Connecticut Summer Enrichment Program.

NCC is the only Newtown organization that is part of this 2023 grant round, and will receive $50,000.

“The Community Center is very grateful for the support from the Connecticut State Department of Education,” Ariniello told The Newtown Bee. “This grant will allow the community center to expand our summer programming and allow for additional campers this summer.”

Ariniello said funds this summer will be designated to creating additional camp scholarships for low income families, provide additional on-site field trips, and enrichment activities for children of all ages.

“These funds have once again allowed us to expand our camp to allow more participants and especially youth that might not be able to attend due to financial constraints,” the NCC director said. “Due to the learning loss from the pandemic, expanding enrichment programming and activities through summer programming is beneficial to our youth and supports our district’s work.”

Established by Lamont in 2021 in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and administered by the Connecticut State Department of Education, the program was created in an effort to connect K-12 students whose education may have been negatively impacted by the pandemic with low- or no-cost, high-quality enrichment opportunities when they are out of school during the summer months.

This includes at summer camps, childcare centers, and other similar programs, with a priority for those in communities that were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

With the release of this funding for 2023 and 2024, the state will have dedicated a total of $33 million for the program since its creation. These resources come from federal COVID-19 relief dollars the state received to support its response to the pandemic, including from the American Rescue Plan Act and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund.

This 2023 and 2024 cohort of grantees is expected to serve more than 66,000 students across both summers.

“Since we created this program a couple of years ago, these grants have expanded access to summertime learning opportunities for thousands of Connecticut students who otherwise may not have been able to enroll in this kind of high-quality programming,” Lamont said.

“Summer camps are a valuable experience for children when they are out of school — not only for supporting their overall education, but also when it comes to strengthening their social skills and emotional well-being,” the governor added. “Continuing this program has been an important priority for our administration, and I’m glad that we are able to provide funding for it for another two summers.”

“We are looking forward to partnering with a number of Connecticut’s summer enrichment programs over the next two years to provide quality summer programming to our students,” Commissioner Russell-Tucker said. “These significant investments place a strong focus on social-emotional, physical, and mental health; academic acceleration, intellectual growth, and exploration; and student-peer relationships during the summer months, so that when students return to school in the fall after a restorative summer they are prepared to learn.”

Of the 110 organizations awarded funding as part of this 2023 and 2024 cohort, 96 received Expansion Grants of up to $50,000 in funding per year, and 14 received Innovation Grants of up to $150,000 in funding per year. More than 50 percent of the programs (62 total) are based in 20 of the state’s 36 Alliance Districts or public school districts that serve a disproportionately higher share of low-income and high-needs students.

A majority of camps (83 total) have dedicated $7.6 million in grant funding to provide scholarships to students to defray or eliminate the cost of attending, while the remaining 27 will offer camp services at no charge. In part due to this funding, summer enrichment grantees expect to open programming to an additional 14,500 students.

An independent evaluation of the 2021 program concluded that the initiative successfully connected more than 108,000 Connecticut students with summertime enrichment opportunities that year. A similar evaluation of the 2022 program is expected to be released soon.

Families seeking to enroll their children in the participating programs for the summer of 2023 can find a list of available opportunities online by visiting summerct.org.

Camps will run as early as the first week of June through the end of August. Ariniello invites local families to reach out to NCC directly for more information.

“The community center looks forward to partnering with many community organizations and agencies in providing these services,” Ariniello said. “Once again, our Summer of Fun family fun nights will be supported through this grant. More information will be released June 1st on the community center website: newtowncommunitycenter.org.