Germantown Friends School has received a $250,000 grant from the Edward E. Ford Foundation in Portland, Maine, to develop a summer program that would bring 36 ninth graders from area public and private schools together to study water in 2010.
The Summer Leadership Academy will offer a multicultural program to help break down the barriers of class and race as the students learn together.
Germantown Friends will work with William Penn Charter School in East Falls, another Quaker school, as well as with two publicly funded charter schools: KIPP Philadelphia in North Philadelphia and Independence in Center City. The program also will involve Temple University, the Philadelphia Water Department, and Breakthrough of Greater Philadelphia, a summer program that aims to place inner-city middle-school students on a path to college.