GILL — The Summer Stars Camp for the Performing Arts is celebrating its 25th year of providing arts programming to thousands of economically disadvantaged children from across the Northeast.

The camp, for children ages 12 to 17, will be held from Aug. 4 to Aug. 12 at Northfield Mount Hermon School. Summer Stars is fully donor-funded, making it free for all campers. Registration will be open until May 31.

“The overall goal is to give kids experience in the arts that actually helps them understand how to express themselves in a variety of ways,” said Donna Milani Luther, founding director of the Summer Stars Foundation. “I think a lot of those experiences can become transformative for kids in getting to their heart and expressing themselves.”

The nine-day intensive program pairs campers with performing arts teachers and professionals for intensive workshops that include singing, dancing, acting, writing, improv and rap. Summer Stars culminates in a 90-minute show at the end of the week where the campers showcase everything they’ve learned.

“It’s way more than a camp that has arts and crafts and a couple of hip-hop classes with some teenagers,” Milani Luther said. “It is really well-regarded professionals that come in and spend a week doing this work with the kids.”

With the guidance of the performing arts staff, interacting with other kids with similar creative interests, and hard work, Summer Stars aims to give kids the keys to success while helping them develop their interpersonal skills and discover who they are.

“I started being more confident with what I create,” said 15-year-old Laila Williams, who started attending Summer Stars last year. “Whether that be poetry, dancing or songs, being surrounded by other artists helped me be more confident in my craft.”

This year’s theme is “Reason for Hope,” inspired by a new poetry collection by Amanda Gorman, “Call Us What We Carry,” which features themes of love and hope for the future. A poet herself, Laila feels the trajectory of her life changed by sharing her work for the first time at Summer Stars.

“I write a lot of poetry, but I’d never really showed it to anybody,” Laila continued. “When I came to Summer Stars, I got to showcase my poetry and it was really life-changing for me because I’ve always been really self-conscious about it.”

Another camper, Justin Coon, going into his fourth year at Summer Stars, said the program has changed his life in how he interacts with others and expresses himself.

“The Summer Stars Camp has influenced me by opening up my social skills and allowing me to come out of my shell, and also helped me to be more creative and try new and different things,” he said.

The idea for Summer Stars began 25 years ago when Milani Luther received a call from a manager representing Britney Spears, who wanted to start a foundation to help kids who couldn’t afford high-quality lessons in the arts. Spears would fund the endeavor while Milani Luther would design and run it. Milani Luther ran the camp for five years with Spears and her manager until the pop star closed the foundation.

This wasn’t the end, though. Using the connections made with schools, students and teachers, Milani Luther was able to create her own foundation, Summer Stars. Since then, she has been striving to give her campers the best performing arts education with musical performances from donors such as Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Run-DMC, the Jonas Brothers, 50 Cent and Taylor Swift.

For Milani Luther, the performing arts program offers children a chance to change how they see the world and how to succeed in it. By working hard and taking creative risks, the campers can develop confidence and problem-solving abilities while learning to express themselves.

“I think that it’s an extraordinary experience for kids,” she said. “Particularly since arts programs speak to kids and their creativity, which I think is so important, but those programs are being cut in so many schools. This kind of immersive experience really accelerates their learning.”

For more details or to register, visit summerstars.org.