Nothing to do on Friday? No problem.
The “Field Trip Friday” program aims to get Baltimore City youth out and into city museums and attractions this summer for free or greatly reduced ticket prices.
Some of the participating agencies include Port Discovery, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Science Center, the National Aquarium and Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture; some will offer free tickets while others will have extended hours or extra programs for summer. By the season’s end, the goal is to run 100 Friday field trips.
It’s the latest in a series of efforts by city officials and community non-profits to entertain and engage city youth outside of the traditional school year as the city contends with rising levels of youth-involved gun violence.
“This is both about preventing violence on the one hand and providing cultural enrichment," said Councilmember Zeke Cohen, District One, during a Thursday morning press conference at Port Discovery. “Too often young people in our city have been feel disconnected from some of our anchor cultural institutions.”
“It's not just for someone else, or for kids from the suburbs to come here…This is for you. This is for Baltimore City kids,” said Cohen to the youth, although no young people attended the press conference.
The tickets, along with some meals and transportation, are funded through education grants. While each institution will handle things differently, most expect to require some type of city schools ID or other identification to ensure that the program is targeting the intended Baltimore City youth.
"What we really focus on is making sure kids in Baltimore have the right set of resources and opportunities to be who they want to be. Summer is an incredibly important time for young people when you think about accessing those opportunities," said Julia Baez, CEO of Baltimore's Promise, one of the multiple partner agencies on the initiative.
Cohen, who is also running for president of Baltimore City Council, led the initiative to create the program after learning that the city schools only offered summer programming Monday through Thursday. At the council hearing where the issue arose, Baltimore City school officials said that the district has been doing four-day programming every summer since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and that staff needed Fridays off from the “long and tiring grind.”
Although the Friday field trips are not an official part of Baltimore City Public Schools’ summer programming, they are one of the partners in the multi-agency program.
“Education in and of itself is a function of the community. And you are the village, we are the village,” said Kwami Kenyatta-Bey, a Baltimore City School Board Commissioner.
