County Connection: InPlay is residents’ one-stop shop for summer enrichment programs

Almost every parent knows the challenge of trying to find local, affordable, quality after-school and summer programs for their kids. Enrichment programs are essential for the health and educational well-being of young students. Children need these opportunities to stay active and learning year-round. Unfortunately, not all students have easy access to summer and after-school programs.

That’s where InPlay comes in, offering a one-stop shop to help parents find fun and engaging activities for their kids. InPlay is a Bay Area nonprofit that partners with local schools to connect students with after-school and summer programs. InPlay also offers a searchable online activity guide, specifically designed to help underserved families find local and affordable programs for their children.

Seeing that InPlay could play an important role toward closing the achievement gap, I first proposed county support of InPlay four years ago. Since then, with county support, InPlay has compiled an online directory of after-school and summer programs available to youth in grades TK-12, including those who are considered low income, have special needs or are English language learners.

The great thing about the InPlay activity guide is that it centralizes resources that are beneficial to all families across our county. And the fact that InPlay specifically identifies low-cost and scholarship opportunities in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Korean, Hindi and Japanese makes it a particularly helpful resource.

Researching summer and after-school programs is often a time-consuming, disjointed and uncoordinated process. InPlay makes all this easier by offering a database that allows families to search from among city-funded, nonprofit and for-profit programs and activities filtered by age, location, cost and type of program. Families can search the guide to find programs within their city and even near their home or workplace, thereby helping working parents save one of their most precious resources: time.

As Shelly, a mom from Mountain View, put it, “Our previously scheduled camp was canceled unexpectedly, (and) I had to scramble at the last minute to find a week of camp for my two children. I went to InPlay and found three programs that fit our needs, selected one and signed up. InPlay was the only way I was able to search and find programs for that specific week, age group and location.”