MISSION & HISTORY

Beam Camp was founded in 2004 by Brian Cohen and Danny Kahn to provide children with exciting experiences in creative problem-solving through working with their hands and actively collaborating with others. 

Since then, Beam Camp has guided 2500+ campers to cultivate hands-on skills while exploring innovative thinking, design, and the creative process. Each session campers and staff build a spectacular large-scale collaborative project chosen through an annual worldwide design competition. Beam Projects have received international media exposure and won major architecture prizes.

In late 2011, Danny and Brian founded the nonprofit Beam Center as the New York home for Beam's philosophy and practice. In 2015, Brian donated the Beam Camp operation to Beam Center and became its Executive Director. Beam Center now collaborates with 29+ NYC public middle and high schools and its Brooklyn home hosts full schedule of Apprenticeship and Youth Employment programs. 

Since its start Beam Camp has funded scholarships and tuition assistance for more than 40% of all campers, the majority of which go to students from Beam Center’s New York City youth network.

Beam Camp remains an integral part of Beam Center's mission. In 2016, Beam Camp refined its summer program to sharpen the focus on skill-building, collaborative challenge, responsibility, and mentorship and deepened its commitment to serve youth from Beam Center's partner public schools and Community Based Organizations. As of summer 2022, Beam Camp is led by Co-Directors Brett Ricard and Pearl Cohen.

Thanks to David Golann, Emily Wilson and Danny Kahn for incredible photography.