Resilient Neighborhoods: This Detroit nonprofit is offering fun summer activities for kids

Summer is right around the corner, and Dowtin Jr. couldn't be happier. The elementary schooler is looking forward to attending the annual LifeBUILDERS summer day camp program, which takes place in Regent Park, the Detroit neighborhood where he lives.

"I'm excited and ready," he says. "We do fun activities. I make friends. You get gym activities. We do a lot of stuff."

The summer of 2022 will mark LifeBUILDERS 12th year holding the annual day camp. Based in Regent Park, LifeBUILDERS is a faith-based Christian community development organization dedicated to serving the northeast Detroit community of about 10,000 residents.

The camp is just one of the many spokes in the nonprofit's wheelhouse, which also includes building housing renovation work, senior outreach and youth programming like flag football, mentorship, and summer employment.

This year the day camp will be taking place between June 27 and July 15 at St. Thomas Lutheran Church, a short ways down the road from Regent Park in Eastpointe. The program, which is open to youth in grades 1-6, takes place Monday through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The camp's programming offers a mix of indoor and outdoor activities that include science projects, cooking classes, games, singing, and bible lessons as well as electives like crafts, LEGOs, and basketball.

Geared towards Regent Park youth, the day camp accepts 150 youth each year. Larry Johnson, co-founder and executive director of LifeBUILDERS, says the organization started the camp to fill a need that wasn't being met in Regent Park.

"Honestly the Lord just laid it on our hearts," he says. "Kids here in our under-resourced community don't get many affordable opportunities to do really cool things. When we started out the first camp we had about 50 kids, and it just kept growing and growing."

This year's camp will feature a special collaboration with Camp Michawana, another faith-based Christian organization that runs its own camp in Hastings, Michigan. Counselors from Michawana will be bringing their expertise to Regent Park for a special mini-camp they'll be holding with LifeBUILDERS from June 9-11. Among other things, the mini-camp will feature t-shirt tie-dying, volleyball games and water balloon fights. Then, after the third week of the LifeBUILDERS day camp, a portion of participating youth will have the opportunity to travel to Camp Michawana in Hastings itself for a week-long overnight camp.

Davon's cousin, Charles Reeder, will also be attending LifeBUILDERS summer camp this June. The 14-year-old has been participating in the day camp since the third grade, but this year he's going to be attending as a counselor.

"I really like the interaction you have with other kids there and the counselors," he says. "And that it's so Christ-focused and that you learn about the word while still having fun."

Charles' mother, Stacy Kallapure, is appreciative of the program and what participating in it has meant for him.

"Its given him an a chance to do activities that he really really likes to do [like] arts and crafts," she says."And as a [former] Sunday school teacher just to hear him talk about the Bible and know it freely and be able to experience the things he does has been very heartwarming to me."