For nine years Claudette Woodhouse’s summers have been anchored by Horizons Hampton Roads, a free six-week summer enrichment program.

“When I first came to Horizons I was 5 years old and liked going to the pool, the beach and lunch,” Woodhouse recalls. For the Booker T. Washington High School freshman the highlight of the summer of 2007 was a field trip to the College of William & Mary that gave her the goal of attending the college in four years.

Horizons is a national summer enrichment program for lower-income children living in urban areas. The Hampton Roads program is one of 11 Horizons programs in the country. Woodhouse was in the first Horizons program in Hampton Roads. The regional program has grown by adding a grade level at a time to take students through the eighth grade.

In 2007 a $120,000, three-year grant from the Batten Educational Achievement Fund, a Norfolk Foundation donor advised fund, helped Horizons expand through middle school. Now the Batten Fund is helping Horizons even more by making it one of the first Batten Endowment Challenge recipients, which will create a $1 million endowment and challenge others to donate so Horizons will receive matching funds.

For Lisa Cook, Horizons executive director, the Batten Endowment Challenge “has energized our board and helped us focus on raising sustainable funds for long-term growth. This was something we had never talked about before.” The organization had no endowment before being awarded a Batten Endowment Challenge grant.

Paul Hirschbiel, a Norfolk Foundation board member, helped introduce Horizons to Hampton Roads in 1999 as a program for 33 rising first graders. Each year since then Horizons has added one grade annually. This past summer’s 230 participants were all public school students from Norfolk and Virginia Beach who attended summer enrichment programs at Norfolk Collegiate or Cape Henry Collegiate.

Horizons teachers excel in wrapping English, math and science lessons into activities related to a theme. Students learn by doing fun activities that range from painting upside down like Michelangelo to learning a traditional 17th-century dance set to Nelly Furtado tunes. Music, swimming lessons, field trips and sports enhance a curriculum designed to “stem the decline that happens every summer with all children,” Hirschbiel says. With nearly 12 weeks of free time in the summer “it is easy for students to fall behind in school,” he adds.

For William King, headmaster at Norfolk Collegiate, “it is great to see kids grow and move on to high school. The students learn so much over the summer because learning is cloaked in fun.”

To learn more about Horizons Hampton Roads visit www.horizonshamptonroads.org