YEA Camp Volunteer-a-Thon Pays Forward Community Service

Join the First Ever YEA Camp Volunteer-a-Thon!

The Girl Scouts sell cookies. Many organizations urge their volunteers to participate in runs, walks, or bike rides. There are lots of creative ways nonprofits can raise needed funds.

We at YEA Camp wanted to do something different.

We wanted to create a fundraiser that would not only fund our scholarship program but would also be aligned with our mission.

After brainstorming with campers, parents, and staff, we came up with an idea we love.

The YEA Camp Volunteer-a-Thon encourages people to get more involved in community service and activism, and to do it publicly with greater accountability and while raising awareness for their cause — all while raising funds for YEA Camp.

Instead of sponsoring people to, say, train for a run, you sponsor them to volunteer for a cause they care about!

We love this model as a perfect way for you to support YEA Camp, sponsor members of our community for doing activism and community service, and/or volunteer to get (more) active on a cause you care about.

Will you sign up to volunteer? Here’s how it works:

1. Choose some activism or community service you want to commit to doing in the month of November. It can be anything! And the whole family can do it together! From picking up litter, handing out leaflets, phonebanking for your preferred candidate, advocating for change in your school or town…. You can do whatever inspires you! It could even be something you were planning on doing anyway! Need some help thinking of what to do? See some of the pages other members of our camp community have already created here and see our list of sample ideas below.

2. Create a fundraising page at this link describing your activist plans and why you’re raising funds for YEA Camp. This is a chance to educate people about why this cause is so important. (Maybe they’ll want to get involved too!) You can also share briefly about why you want to support YEA Camp. Creating a fundraising page is simple: First, create your custom URL (we suggest using your name and/or mentioning the Volunteer-a-Thon). Second, title your donor page. Third, write about what you’re doing and why it matters.

3. Share your page with friends and family to help pay YEA Camp forward. Don’t underestimate the power of social media. Post about what you’re doing on your personal pages or send emails to friends and family who may not have social media.

4. Do activism and make our world a better place! Then keep us posted on how it goes so  we can celebrate the cumulative accomplishments of our community this month!

Why Join the Volunteer-a-Thon?

Even if you don’t raise a single dollar, you will still have made a difference and educated people on a cause you care about! And all the money that we do raise will go straight to our YEA Camp Scholarship Fund that enables us to say YES to lower-income campers who want to join us in making a bigger difference at YEA Camp next summer.

The quickest way to participate in the Volunteer-a-Thon is to donate toward someone else’s volunteering! All donations will go to our YEA Camp scholarship fund, which enables us to grant financial aid to those who need it. Check out these pages of other people participating and show your support by making a donation on their page.

YEA Camp for Adults at Woodstock FarmsReady to Volunteer?

If you haven’t been doing much activism lately, this is a chance to push yourself to do something bigger, or if you are already busy with big activism plans, you can choose something you were planning on doing anyway and go public with it! It can help to create a specific goal, like to spend a certain amount of time doing something.

We’ve made a long list of ideas crowdsourced from the YEA Camp community, but of course don’t feel limited by these.

Stuck on What to Do?

  • Volunteer at your local animal shelter, hospital, food bank, shelter, or other community organization you support.
  • Pick up litter in a certain park, beach, or area in your community.
  • Pass out a certain number of leaflets, gather a certain number of petition signatures, or have a certain number of conversations with people about a cause you care about.
  • Work with a school club to bring about improvements at your school, like getting recycling bins in every classroom or veg options in the school cafeteria.
  • Hold a voter registration drive at your school or in your community, or set a goal of registering a certain number of people to vote.
  • Make a certain number of phone calls for your favorite presidential candidate.
  • Donate school supplies and gently used books to your local library or school, and get others to donate too.
  • Call or write your elected representatives a certain number of times (maybe everyday Mon-Friday for a month?!) to make your voice heard.
  • If you aren’t vegetarian or vegan, commit to trying it for the month.
  • Write or call a company whose policies you disagree with a certain number of times to try to get them to change.
  • Tutor students who are struggling in school, free of charge.

No matter what you do, we are so excited to have you join us for the first ever Volunteer-a-Thon!

Again, to sign up, click here.

 

Interested in taking your activism to the next level? We just announced the dates for YEA Camp 2020. Mark your calendars now! We look forward to seeing you next summer. Do you know someone who would be great for camp? Nominate them here!

  • Youth Camp: in Ventura, California (July 5 – 12) and Charlton, Massachusetts (August 1 – 8)
  • Adult Camp: in Lanoka Habor, New Jersey (July 18 – 24)