Montclair Grass Roots Summer Program began in 1968 with a group of 35 children who were in camp for 4 weeks, and the rest is history.  Wallace Choice Jr. along with his wife Celine have stewarded this community transforming program through 50 continuous years of service.  The program has served as many as 800 young people in the course of a summer ranging in ages from 3 to 18 and has had more than 15,000 campers over its years of service.  In the early 80's Grass Roots settled into its niche of school age children between 5 and 12.  In the early years, Grass Roots was totally funded by foundations and charitable donations until the mid 90's when local foundations started to shift their focus.  To this day, Grass Roots tries to maintain an affordable and quality summer experience for the youth of Essex County.