Church Offers Coding Camp for Kids

By Alethia Brown

LAUREL, Md. — From July 21–25, Restoration Church, Laurel, held a coding camp for children in the local community. About 20 kids attended each evening, enjoying lessons about what coding is and the basics of programming.

“Coding camp is something parents pay thousands of dollars to have their kids go to, and we figured we could be a blessing to them by doing it for free and helping them learn something,”  Akinsanya said. Kids were assigned classrooms for lessons, and they had stretch time (they were full of energy!) and break times with snacks. The church worked to make it fun for the kids, a place to learn, meet others, and be encouraged.

The coding camp was primarily led by Kwame Asante, a software engineer and the music team leader at the church. Asante took the opportunity to become certified online to teach coding in 2021 and has been teaching in local libraries and schools since.

“… [Teaching coding at schools] is something that I do every school year, and Pastor Temi had a good idea, ‘He said, ‘Hey, why not do a coding camp through the church, given the fact that you already do this stuff during the school year for school-aged kids?’ So now here we are,” Asante said. “It’s been an awesome experience, it truly has.

The kids were split between two classrooms, not by age, as some might expect, but at random based on their last names. Asante’s experience with teaching was evident as he led students through fun activities and connected them back to the lesson on programming. One example was a competition for using coding to draw the most stars, smiley faces and triangles in 30 seconds, which fired up some of the students, especially when combined with prizes.

“One thing I’ve learned about what makes coding education easy is incentive, and then having them compete in some form or fashion,” Asante said. “That really gets kids, you know, going and driving. That’s something I try to lean into as much as possible to reinforce the concepts we teach and ensure they stay engaged. I personally wanted to see [a mixture of different ages], because with the classes I teach, they’re usually separated by grade. I think there’s value to having multiple age groups, you know, learning the same thing and sort of shoulder-to-shoulder, if you will. I think there are things that folks can learn from those who are older and younger than they are.”

“They are a high energy bunch for sure,” Asante said. “You know, it’s fun with them because the curriculum we’re doing is actually kind of brand new, that’s one I haven’t really tried at any of the schools quite yet. I wanted to have something unique to the summer program… some of it’s like kind of throwing paint at a wall and seeing what sticks, but with them, you know, things tend to stick just because they’re so willing to engage.”

Akinsanya said the church used the camp as an outreach and VBS alternative. The majority of the children who attended are not Christians. He said, “We thought a coding camp would be like a VBS; you know, you’re here for a week, for a couple of hours,” Akinsanya said. The church felt that the coding camp might also attract more unchurched kids. “We are hoping that at the very least, they get to see what Christians are like — that these kids will grow up and if they become engineers one day they can know that their first exposure to coding came from Christians, and I think that means a lot. I wanted us to be a church that has real impact in our local community…”

Feature Photo: Kwame Asante, a software engineer and the music team leader at the church, led the Coding Camp. (Photo courtesy of Restoration Church)

Severna Park Baptist Member Alethia Brown a summer intern and a freshman at Belmont University, majoring in publishing