Announcing the 2012 Summer Program!

The Blue Hills Youth Program is gearing up for the 2nd annual Youth Program.

This year we will be beginning on Monday, June 4 and continuing through Wednesday, August 1st.

Serving youth ages 8-17, the program, in essence will be the same as last year's with its focus on citizenship, character development and community service.

We will also have weekly recreational activities including the Brazilian martial art Capoeira, Golf, Tennis and Swimming at the Swope Park Pool. In addition, there will be weekly fieldtrips such as the Coterie Theater, the Kansas City Museum, River Market, the Writer's Place, Dream Studio of Kansas City, and much more. We will have guest speakers and other workshops that will stimulate the overall development of the youth.

Some of the new activities that we will undertake are Aikijudo, an intergenerational program called Hometown History and an Equine Leadership Therapy program called Horse Sense that will be facilitated by The Higher Ground Foundation of Kansas City.

Aikijudo is a leadership, anger management and impulse control program. During the class, the youth will learn principles of anti-bullying, peace conflict resolution and impulse control that increases positive behavior and academic success.

The Hometown History program will increase the youth's connection to their community through interviewing and writing stories on community leaders and elders.

With Horse Sense, students will interact with horses to increase patience and learn to control negative impulses.

We are excited about the opportunity to expose the Blue Hills area youth to these awesome activities.

If you are interested in getting your youth involved in the program, please contact B. Michael Long, Youth Coordinator, at 816.509.0873 or at mlong@kc-crime.org. You can also contact Miles Conner, Youth Mentor, at  816.977.1410; and Terrance Ross, Youth Mentor at 816.352.4020.

And by the way, the program is ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!

Youth Reflections On Their Community In Pictures

On Friday, July 25th this past summer, the staff for the BHNA Summer Youth Program attended a symposium hosted by LISC. During the event, there was a point raised by one of the speakers who said that they were familiar with a program who had young people draw pictures of their communities realistically and then what they would like for them to look like. Below you will find pictures drawn by the Blue Hills Youth from this summer on that next Monday. All of drawings are interesting and speak volumes in their own way.

Antwan Anthony 

Alexandria Alexander

Betty Hyman

Iy'Prianna Gentry

Mahija Gentry

Prentiss Smith

Steven Clark

Terrance Alexander

Trun Cooper

Brief Synopsis of the Forming of the Blue Hills Youth Group

By Leigh Blumenthal-Blue Hills Community Service Community Organizer

In 2009, LISC approached Blue Hills Community Services presenting the question that if funding was provided, how we would utilize it in the area of community safety initiatives. Since we felt that mentoring of children (and more specifically, gang prevention) was the one area that was not being addressed properly in Blue Hills, we proposed the idea of a youth program. In discussions with Barry Mayer at the Crime Commission, we discovered he already had a model program waiting to be funded and it seemed like a perfect fit. In the summer of 2011, this initiative became a reality, serving 22 Blue Hills youth during the summer program.

Students Learning Capoeira Instruments

Universoul Circus Pictures

Summer Pictures

Youth with Capoeira instructor Ron "Pregisa" Harvey

At the Federal Reserve Money Museum



At the World War I Museum



On top of KC at the Liberty Memorial

Getting a green thumb with Blue Hills Community Organizer Leigh Blumenthal

Getting their golf lessons on at the Blue Hills Park

Nelson Atkins Museum

Burgers & Bottles on the Plaza after seeing The Rise of the Planet of the Apes