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Cooline Kids held its first summer camp from June 17-28 for kindergarten through eighth grade East Palo Alto students since the death of its founder Christian Sbragia in January. His mother Nicole Sbragia has taken over as the director of Cooline Kids, carrying on the mission to support leadership, service and fun for kids in East Palo Alto.
The organization also hosted one week of “crew camp” for 30 high schoolers and college students to prepare them to become camp leaders and teachers for younger students in the summer camp. By the time the younger campers arrived, “every single one of them came out an educator,” said Nicole.
Cooline Kids is run entirely by volunteers.
Nicole was grateful to see the youth that were previously involved step up to guide newer campers who weren’t familiar with Christian’s work. She calls this team the “bonus bunch.” The program leaders continue to tell Christian’s legacy by holding presentations for newer campers sharing his background, his mission and the impact he’s had on the community.
“I feel like [campers] seeing the bonus bunch do the work of Christian, we turned all of these kids into kids like Christian. They all turned into service-minded, passionate youth,” said Nicole.
After Christian died, Nicole was supported by over 30 high school and college students who now carry on the passion that Christian had in keeping Cooline Kids alive. She said she received hugs and empathy from them every day.
Within the first week of crew camp, Nicole was amazed at how quickly she witnessed the youth grow in confidence and become leaders. “I’ve heard my son talk about it for two years now but I’ve never actually witnessed it. It was so amazing,” she said.
Community leaders have also joined to support the organization including East Palo Alto Mayor Antonio López, local activist Laura Rubio, and East Palo Alto council member Lisa Gauthier who will be taking the campers to Great America.
During camp, younger students worked on aviation projects, science and engineering, coding, cooking, celebrated Juneteenth and more. The camp also focused on team building activities and group bonding.
The program is constantly shaping its curriculum to the interests and passions of the children.
“The best thing that I did as far as creating Cooline Kids is supporting Christian,” said Nicole. “I supported him when everyone else thought it was stupid.”
While working two jobs and going to school full-time, Nicole funded Cooline Kids supporting and encouraging Christian to pursue his passion for serving the community. Nicole and the rest of the staff are currently trying to find funding to keep Cooline Kids alive.
In April, a $20,000 grant from the city of East Palo Alto was approved to fund the summer camp, but the money is still inaccessible due to pending paperwork. Until Cooline Kids is able to access better funding, Nicole is hoping to partner with other community organizations to work together on hosting events and programs.
“I don’t believe Cooline has to reinvent the wheel. I think that there’s communities in East Palo Alto that are doing such amazing things. I don’t want to compete with that,” said Nicole. “We can hold hands together and get a mission accomplished. I just love the idea of someday all of us being able to work together to serve our youth.”
Cooline will continue to provide programs for the youth to be involved in all year round. Nicole hopes to carry on acts of service that Christian used to encourage such as regular check-ins with the youth, holiday events, field trips and Christmas gifts for everyone.
On Aug. 24-25, Christian will be honored at the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts in downtown Palo Alto which will feature professional chalk art during the Italian Street Painting Expo. Artist Felicia Ruiz will be producing an art piece titled, “Nothing is lost… Everything is transformed,” a quote from the 1984 fantasy film, “The Neverending Story.”
The Palo Alto University Rotary and Youth Community Service are dedicating this piece to Christian.
Christian’s family raised $21,537 for his memorial fund. Donations are being accepted to support Cooline Kids programs, staffing and operational expenses on tinyurl.com/CoolineKidsGoFundMe.
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