Serving Children from Germantown on the campus of Greene Street Friends School

Community Impact

Building Community and Growing Impact through Partnerships

Horizons has thrived in partnership with the immediate and broader Germantown/Mt. Airy community for many of the experiences provided to our students summer after summer. We are deeply committed to continuing to build these community partnerships in meaningful ways and we are grateful to have received programming support from the following local organizations over past summers:

 

  • Kirk Pool at La Salle University: Fundamental partner in the successful implementation of the Horizons mission to provide swimming instruction to all students. Over the past two summers, 3 days each week, over six weeks, our students received swim instruction and practiced their swim skills here. The team at Kirk Pool is warm and welcoming to our students providing a safe and consistent schedule for our swimming program.
  • Fresh Grocer at La Salle University: Provided all of our snack foods throughout the duration of the summer.
  • Career Connected Learning PHL (C2L-PHL): This summer we were overjoyed to welcome back four alumni from our very first graduating class (C/O ‘24). These bright and talented scholars returned to spend another summer with us as part of the city’s Career Connected Learning PHL program (C2L-PHL). This program provides paid work experience and career exploration opportunities for youth and young adults, connecting classroom learning with real-world experiences.
  • Tree House Books: Our friends at Tree House Books are on a mission to grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers in Philadelphia. The Traveling Tree House stopped by to provide free books to our PreK-6th scholars on The Book Mobile. What a cool way for our scholars to add to their home libraries over the summer!
  • Los Bomberos de la Calle: This culturally-rich program provided one assembly performance that included traditional and contemporary styles of Bomba & Plena music from Puerto Rico. Their mission seeks to give a piece of Puerto Rican culture to Philly and the surrounding areas.
  • Briar Bush Nature Center: Briar Bush provided a hands-on assembly where students were able to learn about the night sky by sitting in a planetarium and being able to learn by seeing outer space.
  • Quiver Farms: Located in neighboring Montgemory County, Quiver Farms has visited us on campus, bringing animals for our students to learn more about including cows, pigs, and chickens. Our students were able to learn about these animals by feeding and petting them, while a knowledgeable guide explained more about the different animals. 
  • Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Philadelphia Regional Library: Our local library allowed our teachers to deepen the pool of book choices for our students by giving us a school library card for us to check out student books on walking trips we would take to check out books as a class.  Their summer programming also included read alouds and access to a children’s library on specific days each week.  It was great to be able to have students connect with their local library to model early literacy habits for our students, as well.