Founded by Indianapolis Firefighters in 1992, the Saint Florian Center provides Indianapolis youth an opportunity to develop leadership skills, problem solving methods, and survival tactics, as well as fostering core values such as honesty, respect, responsibility and character. After-school programs, tobacco-free programs, rites of passage programs, alcohol and violence prevention programs, collage preparation programs, and youth ambassador programs are among the services the Saint Florian Center provides for young people.

The Saint Florian Center Youth Development Camp, which serves approximately 100 students each sumer, age 6-18, has been in operation for twenty years. Over the course of seven weeks, students learn about the world around them and how to be successful in it by participating in a wide range of activities that include academics, science and technology, team-building, physical fitness and art. This year, Core and Junior Cadets improved their writing skills by writing the stories of their own lives; some took part in a spoken word workshop with poet Erin Livingstone. In 2011, Time Magazine featured the Saint Florian Center Youth Development Camp as an extraordinary summer learning program.

Read the work of students from the Saint Florian Center Youth Development Camp in I Remember: Creative Writing by Indianapolis Youth. Learn More