Send a Kid to Camp

Every year, The Theatre Lab is flooded with financial aid requests for our summer programs. Ongoing economic hardship has caused additional obstacles for many area families who need help providing their children with an inspiring and educational summer. We started the Send a Kid to Camp initiative to ensure we can continue to support our community and give generous scholarships to young people who need it.

Last year, we awarded more than $171,000 in scholarships, creating safe and structured artistic spaces that nurture experiences of collaboration, connection, and self-expression for young people. We believe these experiences are critical for our children and directly combat the enduring national emergency in children’s mental health declared in 2021 by the American Pediatric Association. 

We invest resources in training faculty to create trauma-informed classrooms that not only engage imaginations, but also teach children to recognize and reduce stressors. And these efforts have paid off: 93% of parents gave our camps the highest possible rating on evaluation metrics measuring quality of training, child satisfaction, and feelings of safety. Our students took on great drama with gusto—from Shakespeare to World Theatre Traditions to Musical Theatre and Comedy Improv—reminding us all that theatre is a joyful pursuit that connects even the youngest of us to our shared humanity.