Native American Academic Summer Program

Dear Friends,

Summer is just around the corner, and NAAF is getting ready for our Gu Vo Academic Summer Adventure. This year we hope to have even more participants, and we will be partnering once again with the Al Jek Recreation Center, which is a great new facility, and conveniently located for the community.

The goal of the Gu Vo Academic Summer Adventure Program is to promote education, build our youths’ self-esteem, spark curiosity, and shape strong, healthy, contributing members of society. The program focuses on teaching reading, math, technology, and health education. Also incorporated are the teaching and development of traditional Tohono O’odham art, handcrafts, language, gardening, and cultural history.

The students will take field trips to educational hotspots such as Kitt Peak, The Pima Air & Space Museum, and Biosphere 2, as well as important locations on the reservation such as the historic village Kukatch—ancestral lands where the kids learn respect for elders and basic survival techniques.

Through the use of Cubelets (robotic building blocks that behave differently depending on how they are assembled) the children are taught beginning Robotics and Programming as they build and experiment. Between class periods, students will break for healthy snacks and exercise. Each day will provide the students with an active schedule that will enrich them both mentally and physically.

For 2016’s Summer Adventure Program, NAAF teamed up with the USDA and Arizona Department of Education to provide tasty and nutritious lunches and snacks to the students and staff of the Summer Adventure Program through the Summer Food Service Program. The guidelines of the program ensured that the campers would enjoy well rounded, delicious meals that promote a healthy diet. We will continue this service for the 2017 Summer Adventure.

NAAF was honored to receive the USDA Summer Sunshine Award for exemplary food service in our Summer Adventure Program. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our staff, volunteers, and the community as a whole, we served a total of 3,273 meals during our 6 week program in 2016!

With your help, we hope to bring another great summer program to the amazing kids of the Gu Vo District in 2017. Going forward, as our programs continue to grow and inspire, we hope to branch out to the other districts of the Tohono O’odham Nation who so desperately need healthy, safe, educational, and creative outlets, especially during the summer months when school is not in session.

All of us at NAAF truly appreciate you, and your help with funding for our programs in the past. Your generous donations have helped to make the program a success, and we are extremely grateful. Thank you so much!