Members of a local sorority helped make ice cream and oobleck, build kaleidoscopes and race cars with kids in a church’s summer program last month.

The program at East End Baptist Church had 16 to 20 kids attending most days, said Kaye Jefferson, director of the summer enrichment day camp.

Those kids benefited this year by the partnership of the local chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Members visited every Tuesday and Thursday to read and do math- and science-related activities with the kids.

Last Thursday, on the last day of the program, sorority members read a book involving measurements. The children then picked out different pieces of string, measured them with rulers and yardsticks, and compared strings to find out who had the longest and who had the shortest. They also raced toy cars and measured how far their cars went.

“It’s a success, because that’s something the kids can take back when they go to school,” Jefferson said.

Cherlyn Covington, coordinator of the Alpha Kappa Alpha reading program, said she approached Jefferson with the idea of partnering with the church.

“She has asked us to come back next year,” Covington said.

Science experiments throughout the year included ice cream in a bag, which Covington deemed “messy but fun”; making oobleck, the fictional green precipitation of Dr. Seuss fame; and making kaleidoscopes.

The church program as a whole is so old that most people involved with it now can’t quite remember when it started.

“It’s been going on for many years,” youth pastor David Wade said. Most agree it’s been going on for more than 40 years.

The children took field trips every Friday to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., Water Country USA, Swader’s Sports Park in Petersburg and the roller rink.