Summer means musical theater for Ceci Whiteamire, 16, a junior at Lakewood High School who started exploring camps at Beck Center for the Arts when she was 6. After sampling ballet — “it was too regimented,” says her mom, Stacey — she checked out a “little folks” theater stint.
“Kids worked on speaking in public by reciting nursery rhymes and presenting to families,” she says.
Now a decade later and deep into stage performance, “she is totally immersed,” Whiteamire says.
Ceci was nominated for a Playhouse Square Dazzle Award that honors excellence in high school theater. “She is a Beck loyalist,” her mom says, sharing that Ceci now dedicates summers to musical theater workshops and also teaches younger campers.
Spending summers discovering and delving into a special interest while there’s time can jumpstart progress, introduce career pathways and expose kids to experts. It can seed a passion or a “meh” — a valuable no-thanks process of elimination that’s part of academic and social development.
“If you take dance every week, you still have studies, activities and family commitments,” says Ed Gallagher, Beck Center’s vice president of education. “Summer camps give kids a chance to laser focus on an art form and dig in for several days or several weeks at a time.”
The 50-some days of summer break for school-aged kids is an opportunity to ask, “What’s your pleasure?” (within reason), and allow students to try something brand new or return to a favorite thing to do while there are fewer competing interests like homework and extracurriculars.
Dan Cohen says some boys and girls who sign up for the weeklong Guardians Youth Summer Camps, where ages range from 6 to 14 years old, are chasing Major League Baseball dreams. Others have never picked up a baseball bat, but they love to hang at the stadium’s Kids Clubhouse and cheer on their favorite players. No matter the camper, the goal is to build resilience.
“It’s all about coming back the next day, no matter what happens, and giving it your all,” says Cohen, associate director of the camp. He sees the transformation campers experience when they dive into a week of everything baseball.
“It’s, like, six hours of gym a day, he adds.
Resilience and sportsmanship bubble up from fun times on the field. Whiteamire has watched Ceci grow public speaking confidence and her younger daughter, Maggy, a dancer, gain the ability to “speak” on stage without words.
Importantly, kids find new friends who share an interest.
(Courtesy Beck Center for the Arts)
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“We often overhear, ‘I found my people. I found my tribe,’” says Santina Protopapa, executive director of Creative Arts at Cuyahoga Community College, which holds the camp annually. “They become lifelong friends and sometimes future colleagues, gigging around town and teaching.”
The “woah” remark from a JazzFest Academy Summer Camp first-timer “is evidence that the model of our program and the work our instructors do has meaningful impact,” Protopapa adds. This year’s camp is June 16 to 28.
The 13-year-old was floored to perform on stage and see Herbie Hancock at Tri-C JazzFest, known for composing “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man.” Eighty campers practice daily in ensembles, jazz bands and sectionals by instrument, also meeting JazzFest artists who fly in from all over to participate on Cleveland’s national stage.
“They’re learning and rehearsing in top-of-the-line, sophisticated studios and collaboration spaces,” Protopapa says of the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Center for Creative Arts at the Tri-C Metro Campus.
Protopapa herself is a jazz vibraphonist and DJ who spins exclusively vinyl.
“Campers get to learn with master instructors who are all professional artists from our region,” she says. “They have access to high-quality, hands-on experiences, and an opportunity to work with peers who have similar passions.”
During thinkSTEM at think[box] at Case Western Reserve University, Angela Cain says kids ages 12 to 16 get to experience a college campus and meet students. During the two-week day camp, they focus on engineering, with field experiences such as visiting MAGNET to build and race model cars.
“They participate in various activities at think[box] like 3-D printing, button making and electrical engineering labs,” says Cain, the university’s executive director of pre-collegiate programs. And following a parent-student orientation, families understand the public-access facility is also theirs to explore at think[box].
This summer is the camp’s second year, and following a survey, 70% said they were more interested in engineering after the two weeks. Twenty-five percent of respondents expressed the same level of interest; the few remaining related that this just wasn’t their thing. There’s value in that realization.
“Camps that hone skills in a specific area can validate whether a career field or activity is truly a passion, or it can confirm that it’s something they don’t really like,” Cain says.
READ MORE: The Value of Cleveland Summer Camps Goes Beyond Dollar Amounts
"Improv is like life."
On the lake manning a pram sailboat or rowing the Cuyahoga River with a crew, kids who participate in camps run by The Foundry learn to “master the elements,” says Gina Trebilcock, executive director. “You’re now dealing with Mother Nature on a whole other level,” she relates. “You have wind and waves, current and marine traffic; you have to read the water and adapt. You’re constantly assessing, so it heightens your awareness.”
Sailing and rowing are empowering sports, she adds. “You feel the weight of your decisions.”
The Foundry expanded its summer offerings for 2025, now reaching an even younger audience with Explore Sailing camps for rising third through fifth graders and Explore Pram Sailing for 5 to 7-year-olds (with a parent).
A range of camps for rowing in boats that seat up to eight accommodate middle-school campers and high schoolers, teaching techniques like sculling (one hand on two oars) and sweeping (two hands on one oar). The Foundry will also offer a high-performance invitational camp this summer to build skills for shoulder-season competitive rowing in the fall.
Diving into a special interest camp offers takeaways that extend far beyond a specific sport or art form.
“We break down baseball and softball skills into many parts to work on ‘progression,’” Cohen says of a practice at the Guardians camp that’s helpful with academics, too.
“It’s definitely a teaching environment, and it builds confidence,” Cohen adds. “We encourage kids to fail and put themselves out there — look silly. It’s all in the name of improvement.”
Campers’ favorite Guardians players also pop in to answer questions and share lessons they've learned from the team sport.
At CWRU’s National Youth Sports Program, the five-week experience combines sports, educational enrichment, nutrition, health and civic engagement through mentorship, Cain says. The 55-year-old legacy camp is a “safe oasis” and cements critical life skills.
When campers are focused on a passion — sports, the arts, STEM, nature — they collect a range of capabilities without
necessarily realizing it. During improvisational theater camps at Beck Center, kids figure out “stated rules and nuanced rules,” including how to cohesively play off of other actors’ riffs on stage and engage an audience.
“Improv is like life,” Gallagher says.
Whiteamire has enjoyed a front-row seat to the ways theater and dance enrich life at school and in the community.
“Letting our girls find their own paths has been cool to experience,” she says, “and provided an outlet that builds confidence.”
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