HREI launches free summer camps and activity days for youth

Families looking for structured summer programming in Kootenai County now have a free option in downtown Coeur d’Alene that blends history lessons with arts, music and hands-on projects. The Human Rights Education Institute is offering activity days and summer camps for children as young as 6 and teens up to 14, with each activity day running from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 414 West Fort Grounds Drive and including a light lunch.

The first activity day, focused on Flag Day, centered on the American flag’s history, the meaning of its colors, proper display and folding techniques, and flags of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. The institute said the session was designed to give children an interactive, family-friendly introduction to the nation’s story while also encouraging them to think about their own families and community identity.

HREI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to celebrate diversity and human rights by educating, raising awareness and recognizing the value of all humanity. The institute says its programs are intended to reduce racial prejudice and increase understanding in the community, and its mission page says it serves North Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana. HREI also says it reached more than 22,000 K-12 students in the 2019-20 school year across 55 school districts, a scale that helps explain why its summer calendar matters beyond a single week of camp.

The calendar extends well past Flag Day. HREI scheduled a Juneteenth Community Activity Day for June 18, followed by Juneteenth community panels on June 19 and June 26 at Trailhead Event Center in Post Falls. The institute also listed I AM Nature Immersion Camp for Foster Youth on June 22, part of a longer-running effort that has included youth programming for foster youth, adopted families and other underrepresented children in Kootenai and Bonner counties.

Later in the month, HREI will turn to America 250 with activities on June 30 and July 2 that include games and lessons about patriotic figures and the meaning of patriotism. That programming connects to a larger local effort building toward July 3, when the America250 Community Celebration is set for the Kootenai County Courthouse lawn. Organizers say that event will honor America’s 250th birthday and the courthouse’s 100th anniversary, unveil the original 1926 time capsule and place a new 2026 capsule, with patriotic music, speakers, historical storytelling, children’s activities, an ice cream social and a keynote by Idaho Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Meyer.

HREI says it opened on Dec. 10, 2005, after securing a historic building downtown. In a summer when Kootenai County is already marking America250 with civic ceremonies and public events, the institute’s free youth schedule puts history, inclusion and civic learning in one place for local families.