The Princeton Area Community Foundation is awarding $487,500 in 2025 Summer Initiative grants to 21 local nonprofits for camps and programs that help prevent learning loss and provide affordable childcare for working families.

These grants mark the third year in a row that the Community Foundation has helped fund these initiatives, which feature a combination of academic lessons, focused on reading and math, and fun activities, such as sports, swimming, arts and crafts and field trips. Many of the programs offer meals and transportation for young people.

The Summer Initiative grants were awarded through the Community Foundation’s Community Impact Grants Fund, which thrives thanks to the philanthropic support of many individual donors, foundations, and corporate partners, including Johnson & Johnson. This year, community philanthropists also answered a call to donate additional funds to the initiative, with particularly generous contributions from several longtime supporters.

“We have terrific nonprofits in our region whose staffs work tirelessly to ensure that children get academic support over the summer and working parents have childcare when school is out of session,” said Mathieu Nelessen, Community Foundation President & CEO.  “We’re able to help fund these wonderful summer programs because of generous donors in our community, and we’d like to thank everyone who contributed to our grants program.”

Grantee partners:

• Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County, based in Trenton and Lawrence, $25,600 for its Tween Camp & Teen Drop-in Expansion program. The 10-week Tween Camp program for 11- to 14-year-olds includes swimming, career exploration, educational activities, and field trips. Breakfast, lunch and transportation are provided, and the grant will allow them to serve an additional 10 students. The evening and Saturday Teen Drop-in program also includes transportation and dinner, and the funding will allow them to serve an additional 40 teens.
• Capital Harmony Works, Hamilton, $25,000, for its three weeks of orchestra camp and two weeks of chorus camp, which both include music lessons, reading circles and academic coaching, and fun activities. Breakfast and lunch are provided. The third week of orchestra camp will be a sleepaway experience at Princeton-Blairstown Center.
• Catholic Youth Organization, Trenton, $12,500, for its East State Street Center Trenton Summer Camp. The 9-week program includes subsidized slots, and focuses on the total child, including swimming, activities in a computer lab, literacy and life skills lessons, and field trips. Breakfast and lunch are provided.
• Every Child Valued, Lawrence, $23,440 for its Summer Enrichment Program for grades K-6 and its Teen Summer Series; The K-6 program is designed to mitigate summer learning loss with morning academic enrichment programs and afternoon activities, including arts and crafts, swimming and a Running Club. Teens participate in cooking classes, a college panel with ECV alumni and arts and crafts. Students in both programs also go on field trips.
• Greater Somerset County YMCA, Princeton, $25,000 for its Princeton YMCA Summer Camp, which includes swimming lessons and a social emotion learning component. Grants will be used to pay for scholarships for the program.
• Hamilton Area YMCA, Hamilton, $40,000 for its Summer Enrichment Program; the curriculum will focus on analytical thinking, conflict resolution, leadership skills, and social and emotional learning through play and role modeling. Swimming lessons will also be provided.
• Hamilton Township Public Schools, Hamilton, $7,000, for its K-12 summer camp, now in its fifth year. Camp leaders are teachers, and rising juniors and seniors serve as junior counselors at the camps, which gives students a choice from a variety of programs, including STEAM, literacy, performing arts, culinary, drone technology, and entrepreneurship.
• HomeFront, Lawrence, $25,000, for Camp Mercer: Summer Programming for Families in Housing Crisis, an 8-week program that provides educational enrichment and fun activities for students and childcare for parents so they can work. Breakfast, lunch, transportation, counselors trained in trauma-informed practices, and support staff to connect families to other programs are provided.
• HomeWorks Trenton, Trenton, $21,740, for its Summer Education Intensive, which focuses on academics, including math, English, SAT/ACT and college prep programs. Lunch and transportation are provided. It will also include a field trip and peer leader training.
• Howard’s Healthy Choices, Trenton, $33,410, for its Summer Learning Academy, which includes structured academic enrichment in reading, math, science projects, conflict resolution, first aid/CPR, financial literacy, and public speaking training. It will also include educational field trips.
• Mercer Street Friends, Trenton, $52,700, for its Summer Bridge Program for students at one of its Community Schools: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. The 6-week program includes academic instruction in the morning and after enrichment activities, including gardening, video production, fashion design, Lego design, sports and drum line. It will also include a week at Princeton-Blairstown Center as well as field trips.
• Millhill Child & Family Development, Trenton, $24,100 for its Summer STEM Explorers Program for rising 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. Students are offered lessons in science, technology, coding, robotics, engineering, and mathematics, take educational field trips and meet professionals in those fields.
• Prevention Education Inc. (PEI Kids), Lawrence, $11,971 for its Juvenile Intervention Services’ Summer Initiative, designed to help students recognize risk factors, create links to protective assets, and develop skills to become successful. The program includes a community service component and team-building exercises.
• Princeton-Blairstown Center, Princeton, $10,000 for its Trenton Summer Bridge Program at its 268-acre campus. The program includes STEM, STEAM, critical thinking and literacy instruction to address the summer learning gap and the post-pandemic social-emotional skills deficit in students.
• Princeton Community Housing, Princeton, $14,000, for its Youth Summer Enrichment Program, which will provide grants for 50 children living in the agency’s homes, so they can attend local nonprofit and municipal camps and enrichment programs. The program is designed to help reduce summer learning loss, provide access to structured enrichment programs, and reduce the summer financial burden for families.
• Princeton Public Library Foundation, Princeton, $11,039 for its Youth Summer Reading and Volunteer Program. The reading program encourages youngsters to submit book reviews and log 20 reading hours. The volunteer program offers opportunities for teens to take part in group craft projects and to plan and execute community events at the library.
• RISE, Hightstown, $25,000, for its 6-week Summer Academic Enrichment program for up to 125 students. It focuses on academic, social and creative arts skills, with morning academic classes, afternoon activities, including sports, robotics, art and dance, and field trips. Older students participate in a Leaders in Training program that includes entrepreneurship and college readiness courses.
• Snipes Farm and Education Center, Morrisville, Pa., $15,000, for its Summer Farm Day Camp for Low-Income and Disadvantaged Tweens & Teens. The 8-week program helps students understand the value of agriculture, learn about growing, cooking, and eating natural food, and the importance of environmental stewardship. Students connect to nature, their community and each other. Students learn from experienced farmers and participate in STEM activities and educational enrichment to address summer learning loss. Leadership experiences are offered to teens.
• Trenton Circus Squad, Trenton, $35,000, for its Run Away to the Circus this Summer program at its Roebling Wireworks headquarters. Partner nonprofits bring their young participants to Roeling Wireworks a few times a week, where Circus Squad graduates coach those younger students in circus arts. The squad also offers free Friday performances to the community.
• UrbanPromise Trenton, Trenton, $15,000, for its 6-week summer camp, which offers free academic support, including STEM, reading, and arts and crafts programs in the morning. Enrichment programs are provided each afternoon, and students take field trips once a week.
• YWCA of Princeton, Princeton, $35,000, for its 9-week EmpowerU Summer Program, which includes themed activities and field trips. Students can choose from theater arts, science and engineering, global traditions, or arts & crafts and creativity programs. For the first time, the nonprofit will add two off-site locations to reach more children.

The Princeton Area Community Foundation promotes lasting philanthropy and builds community across Mercer County and central New Jersey. As a community convener, philanthropic resource and manager of charitable funds, it helps people and companies make effective charitable gifts and awards grants to nonprofits. Since its founding in 1991, the Community Foundation has made grants of more than $241 million and provided an additional $48 million in support to our nonprofit fundholders. With over 450 charitable funds, in 2024, the Community Foundation awarded more than $32 million in grants to support the critical work of nonprofits in making the communities they serve more responsive to the needs of their residents. Learn more at www.pacf.org.