San Francisco, CA — Mayor London N. Breed and community organization TogetherSF today announced significant new sponsorship from several businesses for the Summer Together Initiative. Starting next month, Summer Together will offer a combination of free in-person and virtual learning experiences for public school students this summer.

Summer Together is funded through a public-private partnership between the City of San Francisco and philanthropic support. Today, Mayor Breed announced the City has secured additional business support for Summer Together from Stripe, Instacart, Google, UNIQLO, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These new contributions are in addition to the $25 million philanthropic gift from Crankstart, which supported the launch of the initiative. Other businesses that are interested in supporting Summer Together can contribute both monetary and non-monetary support, like food or physical space for learning programs via the Give2SF COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund.

“I’m so excited that this summer we will be able to provide San Francisco students with in-person and virtual opportunities to learn,” said Mayor Breed. “As we’ve been saying from the start of this pandemic, it takes a village to take care of our young people. Thanks to the generous contributions of these new sponsors, our Summer Together initiative is even stronger and will have more resources to ensure San Francisco kids have a great summer of learning and fun.”

Summer Together aims to help San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) students impacted by learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic engage in meaningful, fun, and academically integrated programming and experiences. The Initiative aims to serve SFUSD students, with a focus on supporting the City’s highest need students and families. Summer Together is coalition of San Francisco community organizations, nonprofits, businesses, SFUSD, and City departments. TogetherSF, a community organization, is providing administrative and operational support for the Summer Together Initiative.

“It’s remarkable seeing the local business community step up to make this a great summer for San Francisco’s students,” said Griffin Gaffney, the co-founder of TogetherSF, a volunteer network that helped with rallying the corporate donations to support the launch of Summer Together. “This is an all hands on deck moment for our city, and so we’re proud to see these corporate partners come forward to help. But we can’t stop here — and we hope to see volunteers from across the city come out and donate their time to help ensure the Summer Together initiative is a huge success for students and for San Francisco.”

New Support for Summer Together 

San Francisco’s business community has come together to provide office space, transportation, food, and funding so that kids can safely return to in-person learning and have the resources they need to be successful. Corporate donors have been essential to making this happen. The City is receiving office space and 25 staffed buses from Google, groceries for 1,000 families from Instacart, 25,000 masks from UNIQLO, office space from Stripe, and additional financial support from Facebook and LinkedIn.

“We’re excited to offer up our Community Space and provide up to 25 shuttle buses and drivers to get San Francisco kids to their YMCA summer programs,” said Adrian Schurr, Google.org’s Bay Area Giving Lead. “Students deserve every opportunity, and we are proud to be part of the broad group that has come together to create a summer of in-person learning opportunities after over a year of remote learning.”

“At the core of our mission is access. COVID-19 has widened systemic inequalities and we believe we’re uniquely positioned to remove barriers to food and support communities as families and kids rebound from a very hard year,” said Dani Dudeck, Chief Communications Officer at Instacart. “We’re happy to join forces with our peers and local partners like Together SF to support our neighbors, and the Summer Together initiative - providing groceries to 1,000 youth and their families over the summer.”

“UNIQLO is thankful for this opportunity to support the Summer Together initiative with the donation of 25,000 of our AIRism masks,” said Daisuke Tsukagoshi, CEO of UNIQLO USA, LLC. “We are happy to help the community and contribute to help everyone spend more time together safely, be it enjoying outdoor play or indoor learning.”

“Facebook is excited to sponsor TogetherSF for the upcoming Summer Together initiative providing students with a fun and meaningful summer of learning,” said Thomas Li, Policy Manager at Facebook. “With education interrupted by the pandemic, this program comes at a critical time. We look forward to working with the City of San Francisco and our other corporate partners to offer this opportunity to local, high-need students.”

Summer Together Initiative 

After a year of not being in the classroom, San Francisco’s public school students have fallen behind academically and emotionally. Mental health experts report that children of all ages are experiencing severe social, emotional, and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. These learning and wellness issues are significantly magnified in African American, Latino, Pacific Islander, low-income, and English Language Learner children and families.

This year, the City and School District’s summer offerings will focus on continuity of learning and will expand beyond traditional programs to include curriculum to combat learning loss, ensure credit recovery for high school students, and provide comprehensive support for families. Each individual family will be offered a range of supports for their children from free summer reading books easily picked up at any San Francisco Public Library to a full day of in-person learning at school sites, Community Hubs, or Recreation and Park Camps.

Summer Together will offer free learning opportunities that also includes, short-duration, support opportunities such as mental health and wellness counseling, on an as-needed basis. 

• Academic In-Person Learning. Programming will be hosted at Public School buildings, Recreation and Park Centers, nonprofit spaces and private commercial spaces, facilitated by San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF) community-based organizations and SFUSD’s summer school program. (17,720 slots) 

• In-Person Summer Camp. Scholarships will be provided for students to attend summer camp with San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department, private camp providers and DCYF funded community based organizations. (8,300 slots) 
• Virtual Learning Opportunities. Online programming opportunities from public and private organizations. (2,000 students) 
• Independent learning. All SFUSD students will be eligible for up to ten summer reading books, to be distributed by the San Francisco Public Library. (50,000 students) 

“After this pandemic, San Francisco will be known as the City that said we will do whatever it takes to support our children and youth - particularly from our most marginalized communities - to get the support and services they need,” said Maria Su, DCYF Director. “We have demonstrated this and will continue to deepen our commitment to build an infrastructure of multi-sector partnerships and collaborations to ensure the success of our City’s children, youth and families.”

DCYF has brought together partners from across the City to offer a diverse array of learning options that will be available to San Francisco public school students. Families are encouraged to visit https://www.dcyf.org/summertogether page for up-to-date enrollment and resource information from participating summer camp and program partners. Registered students will begin programming starting on June 14, 2021.

To find out more information about Summer Together volunteer opportunities, go to summertogether.org.  

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