Meet Our Summer 2025 Teaching Literacy with Latin Grant Winners

Three stories from Paideia's summer service learning program.

Teaching Literacy with Latin is the Paideia Institute's flagship Outreach program that expands access to the study of the Classics through fun, free extracurricular Latin classes for younger learners. For over ten years, passionate volunteers have used our Aequora curriculum to teach literacy and Classics to elementary and middle school students across the globe. Teaching Literacy with Latin reaches about 150 students a year, many of whom would not be able to study Latin otherwise.

Each summer, we award 10 grants of $100 to high school students who want to establish outstanding Teaching Literacy with Latin summer camps in their communities. This year, thanks to the generosity of the NY Classicon, we were able to award an additional $1,000 worth of grants.

We are very pleased to share the wild, whacky, and heartwarming stories of three of our summer 2025 grant winners in New York City, Houston, and Beijing!

Morgan Kim | Bringing Latin to H-Town

Morgan Kim, a sophomore at the Middlesex School, held her camp at FamilyPoint Resources, a community center for low income families in Houston. FPR offers many affordable and educational summer camps for kids; this year, Latin was included for the first time, thanks to Morgan’s efforts! Her students made clay tablets, created their own Latin graffiti and even staged a play based on the myth of Romulus and Remus.

“I think doing this at this location was truly special because Houston is a city that typically one cannot find that much Latin in. Growing up here, even though I attended a private middle school, the prospect of taking Latin was never an option in my mind, until I went to a boarding school in MA that offered Latin. Especially with the kind of community that FPR serves, the kids at FPR would never have had a chance to engage to this much extent with Latin had it not been Paideia’s phenomenal Latin textbook and the $100 grant… I’m truly grateful to the Paideia Institute for giving these kids a chance to interact with the classical world, and showing to me how wonderful spreading my own love of Latin to others can be.”

Kalli Yang | Teaching Literacy with Latin in Beijing!

Kalli Yang, a student at Dulwich College Beijing, wanted to run her camp for the benefit of the international and multilingual student population in Shunyi and Chaoyang, Beijing. Alongside three other volunteers, Kalli recruited twelve students, ranging in age from 8 to 16, largely through social media! The daily four-hour lessons were taught in a mix of Chinese and English.

Students in the one-week camp were able to progress through the lessons enough to be able to translate the simple future tense! It wasn’t all translation though; Kalli and her students acted out skits and played Bingo and Jeopardy. Each day concluded with an art activity. The camp was so successful that she’s been asked by the parents of her students to continue it!

“The camp was extremely rewarding, and the students thoroughly enjoyed it. It was especially fulfilling how we managed to make the experience both educational and fun. One student, in particular, stood out; he was already quite interested in Latin and had learned a bit through Duolingo. He expressed a desire to continue studying Latin! Additionally, many of the participants, all from our school, have since signed up for our Latin Club where they will continue their Latin journey!”

Eve Hecht | Giving Back to Her Elementary School through Latin

Eve Hecht is a rising senior at the Nightingale-Bamford High School in New York City. She decided to run a camp at her old elementary school alongside her classmate Claire. Students read picture books and completed collages. Eve even got the chance to see some of her old teachers! All in all, the experience was very fun and rewarding!

“I ended each day back on the carpet where I sat a decade ago and taught them “Salve,” “Vale,” and “gratias tibi ago”. I continued the bootcamp throughout the last week in June, and even did online Zoom sessions with the children who wanted to continue. It was so meaningful to think that I could have sparked the same passion that took root in me.”

Interested in Teaching Literacy with Latin? Start here!

As you can see,Teaching Literacy with Latin is a fun, rewarding service learning opportunity that can take many different forms!! If you were inspired by Eve, Morgan and Kalli’s stories, you can read more about Teaching Literacy with Latin and sign up to be a volunteer. The beginning of the new school year is a great time to get involved–our annual Teaching Literacy with Latin training seminar will take place on Thursday, September 18th, from 8-9pm ET. RSVP here.