KIPP to hold final summer program

LYNN – KIPP Academy Lynn is inviting the public to celebrate the closing of a unique summer community service program called Rites of Passage (ROP) July 30 at the school’s Bessom Street location.ROP provides students at the charter school, which serves grades 5-8, to take part in manhood and womanhood training over the summer, so that KIPP students can meet the needs of the Lynn community through community service and youth empowerment efforts.Teachers Michael Brown and Camille Melton Brown head the program, which they created to help compliment the character development training that students receive as a core part of their KIPP education.”Boys and girls are born, but men and women are created,” said Michael Brown. “Through ROP, the staff seeks to effectively transition adolescents from their self-centered world to a selfless mindset of service to the community.”Following the KIPP model of selfless community service, the students are groomed through the ROP program to make changes in themselves first and then in the community.Thirty-seven KIPP students who not only survived, but flourished through the school’s extended 10-hour school day, rigid, discipline-based structure and substantial homework load throughout the year make up the group receiving manhood and womanhood training.Activities in the summer group include reading and journaling, in-class discussions and positive role modeling exercises that show students the value of community service, selflessness and charity.”Rites of Passage is not just a summer program, but a life-impacting program,” said KIPP Director of Development Nancy Sarles. “Those brave ‘KIPPsters’ who entered the process as boys and girls but are now taking their places in the Lynn Community as motivated, responsible and powerful young men and women.”KIPP is inviting the community as a whole, including city and school department leaders, to celebrate the accomplishments of the students in the program on July 30 throughout the day as the program comes to a close.