OC Summer Program Helps Kids

To the Editors:

President Nancy Dye and the Trustees of Oberlin College have made it possible for all disadvantaged black, white, and other children enrolled at Oberlin High School to get a first-rate education if they qualify to enter Oberlin College. 
Getting any academically weak child, but especially the black child, prepared to meet the College’s stiff admissions criteria is, many would say, virtually impossible. But this is precisely the business of the College’s summer WAVE Program (Words Are Very Empowering) that I am privileged to coordinate without financial compensation. 
WAVE is purely an academic program that is open to all children, not just to black children. It will run for three full months starting in June, with help being available on a 24/7 basis. Oberlin College is perhaps the only college in America that can boast of offering so much help to local children for free all summer long. 
Of course, disadvantaged or academically under-prepared children offer WAVE mind-boggling and daunting challenges. But they also offer WAVE the tremendously incredible opportunities to get them prepared to contribute their fair share to the solutions of the world’s numerous problems. 
WAVE can do its job best if you contribute your fair share. Make your tax-deductible checks payable to: Oberlin College’s WAVE Program. Send them to the Development Office, Bosworth Hall, Oberlin College. Additionally, anyone able to volunteer just a little time this summer to helping elementary children with basic reading, writing, etc., please e-mail me (booker.peek@oberlin.edu). Thanks for getting caught up in this summer’s WAVE. 

–Booker C. Peek
Professor of African-American Studies