Ohio - East End Community Services

Child & Youth Programs

Camp Mariposa

Camp Mariposa^® Dayton is a year-round addiction prevention and mentoring program for youth affected by the substance use disorder of a family member. Youth ages 9-12 attend weekend camps up to six times a year. Weekend camps offer fun, traditional camp activities combined with education and support sessions led by mental health professionals and trained adult mentors. Additional social activities are offered for youth and their families throughout the year. Dayton Camp Mariposa location also offers a Teen Camp for ages 13-17, which is currently wait-listed. All program activities are offered free of charge to families and transportation is provided to the campground location. Camp Mariposa Dayton is part of Eluna’s national Camp Mariposa network. For more information, please visit elunanetwork.org.

2026 Dayton Camp Mariposa Dates:

Youth Camp (9-12 year old)

• January 23-25
• March 20-22
• May 15-17
• August 7-9
• October 16-18
• December 11-13

Teen Camp (13-17 year old)

• February 20-21
• April 17-18
• May 29-30
• August 28-29
• October 2-3
• December 11-13

Applications, Waiver and Release Information
Youth Application

Contact Information
Wendy Berkshire, Camp Mariposa Director
Phone: (937) 259-1898

East End Champions

East End Champions is a free out-of-school time youth development center that works with pre-teens, adolescents, and young adults in grades 6th-12th. Champions provides a holistic approach to meeting youth’s intricate academic and social-emotional needs. The center offers an array of resources and activities that foster resiliency and support students in being successful inside and outside the classroom. These activities and resources include: hot meal nutritionally-balanced meals daily, academic help, mentoring, community service, socialization, college and career planning, drug prevention, case management, college visits, and various leadership opportunities.

Miracle Makers

Miracle Makers is an after-school and summer learning program that aims to unlock a student’s full potential through academic remediation, cognitive and social/emotional development, enrichment opportunities, and family supports.

Parent University

Parent University is a program that provides monthly educational and engagement opportunities to parents of children enrolled in Miracle Makers. Parent University gives parents an opportunity to explore topics of mutual interest including positive disciplines, adverse childhood experiences, stages of child development, and parental rights with IEP's. Monthly Family Night are conducted where families engage in fun learning activities that support their children’s academic growth.

Adult & Family Programs

Neighborhood Job Connections

The Neighborhood Job Connections program is a job readiness program designed to help prepare a person for work. The program provides individualized job readiness activities with the option of becoming forklift certified. Job readiness activities include resume development, creating a job search account with Ohio Means Jobs, and job coaching. Forklift training is a one-day commitment and all participants who complete the program are issued a regionally recognized forklift certification.

RISE 4 SENIORS

As part of our program designed to reduce loneliness and social isolation among seniors, we offer the Aging Mastery Program® (AMP). Created by the National Council On Aging (NCOA), AMP provides information, education and activities that address the aging process, and help seniors, 55 and older, feel better today and in the future.

Senior Outreach Services

Our Senior Outreach Services team assists with a variety of needs for clients. To be eligible for services, clients must be age 60 or older, live in Montgomery County and meet the income guidelines. Our team builds relationships with clients, assesses their needs and makes a plan to meet those needs. We connect clients to other resources and guide them through the process. We do anything from helping read mail for visually impaired clients to being an advocate with Medicare. We host social events such as ice cream socials and Thanksgiving dinner. We also have partners who come and do informational events for our clients.

Work Experience Programs (WEP)

In partnership with Goodwill Easter Seals, East End's Work Experience Program (WEP) provides intensive case management and job search/job readiness classes to parents of children under 18 who receive State cash assistance through Montgomery County.

Neighborhood Revitalization Programs

Drug Abuse Prevention, Access to Treatment and Recovery Supports

East Dayton remains the center of opioid drug activity and overdose deaths in Montgomery County. East End has been on the front lines of the Opioid Epidemic since 2014 to save lives, working with many partners to create innovative ways to connect persons struggling with addiction into treatment and long-term recovery.

Food Access Resiliency Enterprise (FARE)

Food Access Resiliency Enterprise (FARE) began in 2017 with support from Montgomery County and the United Way to improve food security in inner East Dayton. The goal is to increase affordability, quality, and nutritional value of food available to East Dayton families, and to enhance residents’ knowledge of how to grow and prepare healthy foods.

Housing and Economic Development

Having quality, affordable and safe housing is essential to providing a nurturing environment for children to grow and feel safe. In 2006 Twin Towers neighborhood, residents, East End Board of trustees and staff, along with partner organizations, developed a comprehensive housing strategy for the neighborhood that focused on the goal of improving about 25% of the neighborhood’s housing stock. Of the 1200 residential structures at the time, about 25% were vacant and deteriorating, and the heart of the neighborhood (Steele Avenue) was populated by crack houses. Because of the age and extremely poor condition of the existing housing stock it was decided that new construction of single family homes would be the strategy of choice.