JLLVPA, CSC, and Aerie volunteers at last week’s summer slide bag packing event

Last week, the Junior League of the Lehigh Valley partnered with Community Services for Children (CSC) and the Aerie REAL Foundation for a volunteer event to pack over 300 bags filled with educational materials for students entering kindergarten across the Lehigh Valley. The bags are a part of ongoing initiatives by the JLLVPA to combat learning loss that occurs over the summer months when students lose access to valuable educational resources, also known as the “summer slide”.

Click here to view a short YouTube video depicting how summer learning loss impacts students.

Contents of the Summer Slide bags

Studies show that low-income students are disproportionately affected by summer learning loss because they may have less access to books, enrichment programs, and cultural experiences than their more affluent classmates while school is out of session.

Since 2017, the JLLV has fought to end educational disparity between socioeconomic classes and promote literacy in the Lehigh Valley.  We work hard to target our community programming to close the achievement gap between low and high-income students because we firmly believe in educational equity for all students.

We could not have completed this impressive task without generous financial support from the Aerie Real Foundation! Since 2022, Aerie has provided over 2 million dollars in grants to organizations that strive to build confidence in women, like the JLLVPA!

$5,000 grant from Aerie REAL foundation

Thank you to all the volunteers who attended the event!

Want to help us on our mission? Check out our website to see how you can help us make a difference for children in the Lehigh Valley by donating or joining our organization!