Thank you for your interest! While the Boston Foundation continues to invest in summer opportunities for children and paid summer opportunities for youth in Boston, we are folding that work into our portfolio of work in education and the movements strategy of our Social Justice Ecology framework. In 2021, we will make more than $500,000 in grants to Greater Boston nonprofits that serve thousands of Boston students and provide nearly 200 stipended positions for young people in Boston.

Since 2010, My Summer in the City has helped to ensure that a range of high-quality summer programs and activities are available to Boston’s youth and families throughout the summer months. The program, supported by the Boston Foundation in partnership with our donors, has the goal of strengthening Boston's reputation as a national model for youth employment by supporting programs that meet the needs of many young people who might otherwise slip through the cracks.

In 2018, My Summer in the City reoriented its focus from recreational programming to providing jobs and opportunities to young people who are traditionally excluded from many summer youth programs, either because of language, immigration status, homelessness or LGBTQ status, or because many younger teens are too old for many camps, but too young for more employment-oriented programs.

As the Boston Foundation continues to think about equity and inclusion broadly, seek to be intentional about including tand supporting all of these populations and providing our partners and the young people they serve with the support, flexibility and tools they need to be successful.

My Summer in the City prioritizes summer employment opportunities within these populations:

1. Young people in middle school, ages 12 to 14 years old; and
2. Underrepresented young people.

Our approach is twofold. First, we want to create high-quality stipend pre-employment programming that offers young people stipends as well as a pipeline to full summer employment opportunities. Our special focus in this area is on middle-school-aged young people, who too often are left to care for themselves during summer months, with limited opportunities to participate in structured activities that offer enrichment as well as employment). Second, we want to provide employment experience and job training to those young people who have the least access to summer employment experiences. 

In June 2019, My Summer in the City announced its initial slate of 2019 grantees. You can read about them here.