Smith Memorial Playground
Title: Beyond the Playground: Promoting Health and Financial Literacy in a Community Summer Camp
Student Interns:
Jack Bifano
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Gwendolyn Orme
University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine
Academic Preceptor:
Hillary R. Bogner, MD, MSCE
University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine
Donald L. Boyer, MD, MSEd
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Abby Quinn Peterson, DMD, MPH
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Elizabeth Powell, DDS, MPH
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Community Preceptor:
Frances Hoover, MBA
Executive Director
Smith Memorial Playground
Community Site:
Smith Memorial Playground serves as a welcoming, safe, inclusive space for unstructured play for children from the Philadelphia community and beyond. With play shown to be an essential part of child development, Smith Memorial Playground advocates for uninhibited access to vivacious, joyful, and meaningful interactions among kids of all ages. Furthermore, increasing tourism and offering a variety of larger outdoor play-inspired activities are some of the many ways Smith works to benefit their East Fairmount Park community. The laughs, screams, and cheers are an endless reminder that something as simple as play can lead to lifelong connections, immense growth, and a healthier, more connected community.
Team’s Experience:
The Bridging the Gap interns at Smith Memorial Playground spent the first three weeks of the program preparing for Summer@Smith, a free six-week summer camp for Philadelphia families of low socioeconomic status. The interns created financial literacy and oral health lessons and assisted in administrative tasks needed to run the camp smoothly. For the final four weeks of the BTG program, the interns worked with Smith staff to put on Summer@Smith for 33 campers. The interns spent each day with the kids, organizing activities, teaching lessons, and ensuring campers had a safe, fun, and enriching summer.
Reflections
A push on the swing, a spin around on the tire, a new paper airplane, and more begging for Smith dollars than one could possibly predict. Although most of these seem like normal childhood inquiries, my summer at Smith Memorial Playground was far better than normal. With the kids not arriving until the fourth week, I had some initial worry of just how strong of a connection I could build with them in such a short amount of time. Little to say, my worries were absolved as the first day of camp concluded. Not only has it been a privilege to work alongside my fellow camp counselors and community preceptor, but it also has been a wildly rewarding opportunity to incorporate educational, movement-based lesson plans into the camp experience, focusing on a wide variety of topics such as financial literacy, oral health, and sports as an avenue for exercise. However, most importantly, this experience has affirmed my belief that healthcare extends far beyond the clinic, where play serves as one method to shape healthier, more confident, and resilient futures.
Jack Bifano
I knew that I wanted to be a pediatrician from the moment I decided I wanted to be a doctor. In my first year of medical school, I loved learning all of the science behind health and caring for others, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose the passion for working with children that drove me into medicine. And then the 30 Summer@Smith campers showed up in my life; kids who laughed for no reason, danced in the rain, drew the same action figure doodles on every assignment, climbed trees that were far too tall, played infinite rounds of the same summer camp games I played as a kid, folded more fortune tellers and paper airplanes than I can count, gave tight hugs, told silly jokes, and were perfectly, innocently, joyfully, wonderfully just kids. This was my favorite part of Bridging the Gaps—the reminder that all of the work has a purpose. That there is a reason behind all of the advocacy. So that when I am fighting uphill battles with insurance and government agencies, I don’t just see the papers, diagnoses, and stress. But that some part of my brain still hears their giggles echoing through the trees, their feet stomping through the playground, and their little voices asking a million questions I never would have thought to. So, I remember the privilege and the honor of getting to help keep kids healthy such that their biggest worries are where the exact purple crayon they used yesterday went and not where they are sleeping or if they will have dinner. Their resilience, laughter, and contagious joy will give me something to hang on to, something to fight for.
Gwendolyn Orme
