In July and August, at the Tabler Center for Arts, Culture and Humanities, Stony Brook University hosted 50 mostly low-income third-grade students from the Longwood and Wyandanch school districts in a pilot program for Stony Brook’s Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School. 

Building on the pilot program success, President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD,  committed to fund an additional four years of  Stony Brook’s Freedom School, a summer enrichment program designed to boost motivation to read, generate positive attitudes toward learning, and raise the self-esteem of the participating schoolchildren.

Children from the Longwood and Wyandanch school districts took part in the Stony Brook Freedom School.

The Freedom School was free to participants and their families and included two nutritious meals and a healthy snack each day. The University absorbed all costs.

Mentoring is an essential part of the program. Stony Brook students and recent graduates — called servant leader interns — traveled to the CDF Freedom Schools’ training site in Clinton, Tennessee, before the program began for leadership development, teambuilding exercises and instruction in how to deliver the Freedom Schools’ Integrated Reading Curriculum (IRC) with enthusiasm.