By Samson Afolabi-11th Grade, Trinity Christian School

If you live in Pittsburgh and listen closely to what is happening, then you have probably heard of Summer 16 — and I am not talking about Drake. The Mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, initiated a summer program called Summer 16: Dream! Explore! Do! which was designed to get the youth of Pittsburgh more active and do more activities during the summer. The program partnered with many organizations and established a lot of events to accomplish this goal. It was a great idea and a great program and, with school soon starting, it is nice to look back on all the great things that have happened this summer.

Activities are a great way to get kids and youth engaged and entertained — and to get them outside. The events sponsored by Summer 16 were able to do just that and included HappyFeet Soccer, which helped children and guided them in order to grow and develop in the sport, and the Summer Flower Show at Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.  Events also included the Highlander Summer Camps, which focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) skills, and Hometown Hoops Mini-Camps. These programs were offered several times throughout the summer along with many other Summer 16 programs. The Summer 16 initiative has been praised and encouraged on several sites, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Trib Live, Kidsburgh and PGH Momtourage. These places had only good things to say about the program and the intuitive was a success.

Summer may be almost over, but that does not mean we can not look back and think of all the good things that happened this summer, especially with Summer 16. It was a splendid idea and it is great to see local government supporting youth in the community. Although I hope to see more things like this in the future, we do not have to rely on a program to be active in the summer as many other great things happened that were not included in the program. So regardless, here’s hoping that all youth get up, go outside and find something to do to have some fun being active, because you are only young once.

Samson is an 11^th grader at Trinity Christian School. He lives in North Braddock and has been on the Trinity School Newspaper Staff. He is interested in programming, and is seeking to major in cyber security and have a career in cryptology.