Backside Learning Center

As we close out this session of Aprendiendo Juntos, we want to congratulate our parents and kids for completing their Ages and Stages Questionnaire in partnership with Metro United Way. Our goal is to empower the educational journey of our backside families 📚.

We couldn't do this without our wonderful team, volunteers, donors and community partners.

During the last 3 summers on the backside, we've hosted mental health workshops known as "Donde Nace El Cambio" for our clients. People who work at the track face different personal, family, work-related, and cultural challenges that can create stress, emotional changes, and difficulties adjusting to different situations. These workshops provide a safe space where participants can pause, reflect on themselves, and learn practical tools to support their emotional well-being. More than just teaching concepts, these workshops are about supporting participants, recognizing their experiences, and reminding them that asking for help, taking care of themselves, and continuing to grow are also forms of strength. Every summer, our students enjoy these sessions so much that they ask us to extend the program for another week or two. For our latest group, we ended our program with a trip to Berheim Forrest.

Consider supporting Backside Learning Center on September 10th during Give For Good Louisville.

Celebrating those who make our mission at the backside successful was such a rewarding experience. It was so exciting to provide our volunteers from our programs on and off the backside an opportunity to connect. Our home away from home wouldn't be possible without our volunteers.

That’s a wrap on summer camps! This is how our youth spent their summer: our 3rd annual Literacy and Adventure Camp drew our largest group yet, 23 students in grades K-5. Another 21 kids headed to Camp Bernheim, outfitted by KEEN with shoes made for land and water. Our kids spent their first night away at YMCA Camp Piomingo. One student went to Americana World Community Center’s NASA camp. Our continued partnerships with Louisville Nature Center and Passionist Earth and Spirit Center allowed to send 8 students to each camp. 5 kids were at African in America’s soccer camp. And our teens enjoyed 4 summer outings, including a trip to Cincinnati. A total of 118 unique summer experiences happened throughout the season. Thank you to all our volunteers, donors and community partners for giving our kiddos a summer to remember.

We want to thank Tri-Arrows Aluminum and other supporters for their continued donations! Our backside families are going to love these donations, now we have more activities, prizes and snacks for our fall programs.

As we prepare our Fall programs, we want to remind our community that an easy way to engage with our mission is to check out our wishlist: https://backsidelearningcenter.org/wish-list/

We couldn’t be prouder of our students for completing Breakthrough Louisville this summer!

This morning, we welcomed the Louisville Nature Center to the backside of Churchill Downs for a tour.

Every summer, we love being able to send children of backside employees to camp at the Louisville Nature Center. Experiences like this make it possible for us to fulfill our mission year round.

For the past 6 weeks, we’ve hosted Salud y Nutricion classes to address to address the high rates of diabetes and other nutrition-related health challenges among backstretch workers. These workshop provided participants with practical tools for preparing healthy, affordable meals despite the unique challenges of life on the backside, including long work hours and limited cooking facilities.

We want to give a special thanks to Thoroughbred Charities of America for funding a collaboration between Kentucky State University Extension Office, the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center and the Backside Learning Center which allowed us to provide these nutrition workshops.

Earlier this week, we were happy to welcome the UofL Office of Admissions to the backside of Churchill Downs.

Backside tours are a free way for us to connect to our community and bring awareness to our mission at the Backside Learning Center. If you or your organization is interested in a tour, contact Enidza Torres [email protected]