For over 50 years, low-income, under-served families from Long Beach have relied on the free educational programming and youth development activities provided by DAYS Long Beach. A mainstay in the community, DAYS Long Beach supports achievement by providing opportunities to practice skills learned in the classroom, enhance the desire to learn while applying concepts, and build positive relationships with the community through to places, people, and ideas beyond our clients immediate reach.
Our programming is crucial to the community, where there are high numbers of children in poverty, experiencing food insecurity, dropping out of school, and falling into gangs. Many of the at-risk youth in the area served by DAYS Long Beach have no other means for obtaining supplemental education and recreational services, as they face social, cultural and economic barriers to other mainstream programs in the area.
DAYS Long Beach began in 1970 when community activists Dorothy and Edwin Baker recognized a lack of free educational programs for disadvantaged children in the Long Beach area. With a belief that all children and youth deserve to have access to inspiring programs offered in a safe space, programs that create strong relationships and awaken the imagination, Dorothy applied for and received a grant to provide summer programming to the children of Long Beach.
Incorporated in 1999 under our legal name, The Edwin and Dorothy Baker Foundation, DAYS Long Beach is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that promotes charitable extracurricular and recreational activities for the benefit of children and youth.