In 1994, the first Horizons for Youth summer campers arrived at Northampton Community College on Green Pond Road in Bethlehem Township.

The brainchild of Gail Mrowinski, then a part-time NCC employee who would serve as associate dean of community education from 2005 through early 2024, Horizons is celebrating its 30th season providing enrichment and summer fun for children entering kindergarten through ninth grade.

Audree Chase, current associate dean of community education, talked about Mrowinski’s vision.

“There was a need for that particular age demographic to have an opportunity to have their first experience on a college campus,” she said, adding spending time on a college campus is still a unique opportunity for most of today’s Horizon students.

The program has staying power, in the community and in families.

“We’ve had several families who are now parents, who grew up going to the program,” Chase noted, “and are now sending their children to the program and are supporting it in other ways.”

Horizons participants take enrichment classes in a variety of areas, from acting to archery to robotics, which are held 9 a.m.-noon Mondays-Fridays through Aug. 15.

Most classes in the Bethlehem program are offered at the main NCC campus, with a few courses that use special equipment, such as cooking classes, being taught at the Fowler Community Center on the south side of Bethlehem. Professional instructors, including local teachers and Black Rocket technology teachers, lead classes, with high school students volunteering their assistance.

Horizons leader Carrie Hirschman remarks on the close connection between the college and the families who participate in the program.

“[At the Horizons open house], I heard parents saying, ‘Oh, I took my psych classes here,’ and showing the rooms to their kids,” Hirschman said.

She said some children who enter the program before kindergarten come back as volunteers during high school and then enroll at NCC.

For the children involved, the program offers something special.

“A mom told me that her daughter has been telling everyone in her kindergarten class that she’s going to college for the summer,” Hirschman said. “We hear that a lot.”

Additional information is available at northampton.edu/education-and-training/community-education.