“I came to CTY and...” - Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth ...

discovered
Seeing the World
t visit cty.jhu.edu/annualreport to learn
about more cty family academic programs,
including educational travel programs to
belize, china, and ecuador.
To learn more, please visit: CTY.JHU.EDU/ANNUALREPORT
“CTY kids are
powerhouses
of knowledge
and ideas.
Why not use
that to help
the world by
applying their
knowledge
to solving realworld
problems?”
Julia Gumminger
Gabe Straus, 12, is a worldly kid. He reads the New York
Times, placed second in the New York State finals of the
2011 National Geographic Bee, and has traveled the globe
with his family.
Until recently if you asked Gabe where Belize is, he could
pinpoint it on a map and tell you a little about it. But
it wasn’t until he traveled to a rainforest in this Central
American country with CTY Family Academic Programs
last December—a weeklong trip that incorporated such
projects as working alongside Mayan villagers to build
stoves and plant crops—that he really understood how
some Belizeans live.
“The trip was an eye-opener for me,” Gabe says, of visiting
and working in villages where Mayan families shared
one-room shacks with dirt floors, no electricity, and no
indoor plumbing. “It was a really fascinating experience.”
The international service learning trip was a first for
CTY, but it’s unlikely to be the last.
Julia Gumminger, assistant program manager for
Family Academic Programs, developed the program
because she knew that few opportunities blending
travel and volunteering existed for families with schoolage
children and believed that CTY families would
relish the chance to travel, learn, and work together.
The trip benefited parents as well as students, says Sabrina
Wolfe, Gabe’s mother. “Being on this trip and getting just as
muddy as Gabe digging these stoves was a great opportunity
to help him understand the value and meaning of service
while being surrounded by other families who all want to
help,” she says. “It was just so meaningful.”
20
CTYers and their families help Mayan
villagers in Belize build a stove.