EAST ATLANTA KIDS CLUB INC

Our Programs:

Afterschool (Kids Club & Teen Club)
Afterschool programming is delivered Monday-Thursday in alignment with APS calendar and serves 160+ youth, ages 5-17 annually. Kids Club programming is anchored in a combination of S.T.E.A.M.-based curriculum & partnerships and positive sports-based youth development curriculum & partnerships. Teen Club programming is modular, by design, and includes annual film camp programming, app development, and podcasting curriculum. In 2024, youth attended afterschool programming from 18 area schools, and transportation is provided (as available) via two 15-passenger vans that service 6 area schools. Program partners include Emory SciCovery, Black Kid Art, Coach Daisha (tennis and basketball), Coach Mosquito (basketball), 8 Legged Scales, AppleBox Productions, and Emory Pediatrics.

Camp Full S.T.E.A.M. (Summer Camp)
Our 6-week summer camp serves the same youth, ages 5-17, as our year-round afterschool, and programming is also a balanced mix of S.T.E.A.M.-based and positive sports-based youth development curriculum. Dosage is higher during the summer (8 hours daily vs. 4 hours daily during afterschool), and additional experiential learning is layered into the program via field trips. 90+ youth enroll in summer camp annually, and in 2024, youth enrolled at EAKC represented 33 area schools. As with afterschool, transportation support is provided as capacity allows.

Food Security
On March 13, 2020, we made a decision. If we were going to be closed to in-person programming for any period of time, we were going to find an alternative way to be of service to our community. We began our food distribution programming as a partner agency of the Atlanta Community Food Bank that week and didn’t look back.

For months in 2020, we sought weekly sponsors to sustain this work, and later that year, we were invited to apply for a 3-year grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. That support eventually carried this work through the Summer of 2024, and it has put more than $1M worth of food into neighboring households, most of them low-income, senior households or multigenerational households. With our multi-year support ending in 2024, The Imlay Foundation stepped up to sustain this weekly programming for another year.

While the pandemic highlighted the plight of our food insecure neighbors, inflationary pressures have deepened the crisis since 2020.

Counseling Services
After engaging in program design in 2023 and initial EAKC staff training led by local counseling firm, Root & Blossom Counseling, we officially launched no-cost counseling in 2024. Through group and individual counseling, delivered on-site at EAKC during program hours, youth are building resilience, learning new coping skills, and expanding their network of trusted, caring adults.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic and rising economic inequality, EAKC youth are increasingly facing loads that exceed their capacity. In order to ensure that youth are well and able to focus on the academic and extracurricular programming that we offer year-round, it is critical that we equip them with the best resources to develop their overall well-being.

This pilot programming is funded thanks to the generosity of The LuluMa Foundation, and it is an iterative process that is empowering all stakeholders to design the ideal support for our kids and families.

Butterfly Effect Leadership Program
The challenges faced by out-of-school time programs like ours is finding afterschool and summer camp instructor talent that reflects the lived experiences of our kids and teens and has the flexibility to work nontraditional hours required for afterschool and summer camp, and as the pay gap between OST and early childhood education professionals and school-based staff continues to widen, this challenge is exacerbated.

Since 2022, we have tapped a talent pool of alumni from another local nonprofit, Leap Year, to find Opportunity Youth who can fill these roles well while also building their own professional experience. In late July of 2024, through a generous grant from The Cousins Foundations, we formalized this pipeline, offering summer camp and afterschool roles to four LY alumni who are able to continue their studies at Georgia State while working a stable schedule of hours at EAKC and leaning into their own professional development within the youth development/education sector.