LINC Chess Camp: 'A great community, a great game to learn'
Perhaps Abram, an 8-year-old novice chess student, knows something about those mind-growing reasons LINC gathers children and adults for its annual summer chess camp.
But it’s not the critical thinking skills, better school performance or life lessons that he mentions first when he says why he signed up to better his game.
“I like to learn how to play chess better,” he said, “because I want to beat my cousin.”
Dozens of children and adults of wide-ranging experience gathered at LINC’s one-week courses between July 10 and 21 at Morning Star Youth and Family Life Center at 27th and Prospect in Kansas City in pursuit of their own chess game goals.
LINC has long promoted the benefits of chess for children, holding chess classes at many of its Caring Communities program sites in the Kansas City Public Schools and Hickman Mills, Grandview, Center, North Kansas City and Fort Osage school districts.
The summer chess camp gives children more opportunities to develop their game, and LINC’s Chess University is designed for adults to help lead or support chess at home and in the classroom.
“I doesn’t matter how old they are,” chess instructor Kristin Davis said. “It doesn’t matter what language they speak. It doesn’t matter their skill level. Anybody can play chess.
“Everybody comes together and they learn a game that’s been around for thousands of years,” she said. “And they go teach their friends, and they teach their parents. It’s just a great community and a great game to learn.”