Tyler's Camp

We align community and cultural assets to provide a world class summer experience for middle school youth

Tyler’s Camp offers Delaware’s middle school students a chance to explore all that they can be and what they have the potential to create. Students choose from a suite of music, technology, sports and arts opportunities, free of charge for Wilmington’s highest need youth. Last year students chose from seventeen different options, ranging from Wrestling to Field Hockey; and coding to animation.

SummerCollab has created a unique and powerful network of partners, including Strive, Microsoft, Hagley Museum, The Boy Scouts, The Delaware Nature Society, Longwood Gardens, WYRA, Opera Delaware, Wilmington Ballet, Delaware Sports League and countless others. We also assemble committed sports and arts instructors to offer unprecedented access to extraordinary enrichment options.

At Tyler’s Camp our kids are free to explore their interests and grow their potential – while practicing engineering, leadership, and literacy skills. Community’s assets collaborate to provide our highest need youth with a world class summer experience.

Sports and art instruction

Tyler’s Camp brings together diverse, robust and high quality community based partners who – together – amplify their collective ability to serve our highest need kids. Partners include Salesianum, who have gifted their facility to SummerCollab free of charge in service of this mission, The Wilmington Ballet Academy, Opera Delaware, Microsoft, WYRA, Padua, Ursuline, 1313 Innovation, The Delaware Sports League, Wilmington Children’s Chorus, Hagley Museum, Longwood Gardens, as well as over 17 instructors bringing to life 17 diverse sports and arts opportunities for kids.

In memory of Tyler Brown

Tyler’s Camp is named for Tyler Brown, a Salesianum senior that was killed in a car accident in March 2016. Tyler was the true picture of a modern-day Renaissance man. He explored, tried, succeeded, and sometimes failed, but he never failed to try again. Tyler was an artist, who planned to go to Syracuse University for architecture. He was involved in community service – and Tyler’s Camps is something he would have loved to be a part of. In his spirit, we built this program to increase access to creative arts, performing arts and athletics programs for low income kids in our city. Tyler’s legacy embodied a truth that arts and sports are fundamental to our humanity – to our ability reflect and grow.

"If there is one thing I can take away from working at this camp. it is that these children will not only overcome each of their own challenges, but they will be the solution to many of ours. Ask any instructor here, and I guarantee everyone will testify that they have grown both as a person and a teacher by interacting with these kids. These children are ready, bright, and willing to help, grow, and make a difference."

- Jacob Owen

Let’s make summer smarter together!

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