We are reinventing ourself in 2024

For the past 15 years, YEA Camp has run life-changing overnight in-person camps for teens and adults who want to make a bigger difference in the world.

We’ve trained thousands of up-and-coming changemakers to get started or get serious on the social justice causes they care about.

And we’re super proud of the impact we’ve made over these years.

We’ve lost track of the number of people who have told us that YEA Camp changed their life. We know YEA Camp has achieved great things because our campers and staff have achieved great things and told us YEA Camp helped them achieve them.

Nothing that I am about to say below can change that, or is intended to minimize the beauty, achievements, relationships, and goodness that have come from what we have created together over these past 15 years.

Fulfilling YEA Camp’s Mission

I’ve been struggling with how to say this for a while now, but I’m just going to say it.

The mission of YEA Camp was never to run a camp.

YEA Camp’s mission is to help more people make a bigger difference to bring about social justice. 

A camp was the format that I chose to fulfill that mission way back in 2001 when I first started developing this program, and when we launched in 2009, and ever since. A camp is what made the most sense to me back then.

But I now believe that there are more strategic ways for us to fulfill this mission. 

That’s why, after much thought and discussion, I’ve decided that we won’t be holding YEA Camp in person this summer. We may hold it again in the future, but we will not be doing an in-person camp in the summer of 2024.

Changing With the Times

Back in the early years of YEA Camp, platforms that are extremely popular today and that can reach literally anyone on the planet with the Internet (smartphones, podcasts, YouTube, online courses, and sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.), either didn’t exist or were not yet widely accessible ways to reach people.

My goal when starting YEA Camp was to help as many people as possible become effective activists for social change.

Without all of those other platforms, a summer camp seemed like a strategic, inspirational, and super fun way to do that.

And it was. I mean, it still is an incredible way to provide in-depth, holistic training to help people who are passionate about a cause to take effective action and make a bigger difference in the world.

But our costs have increased significantly. The 2023 camp cost double what we paid in 2019. We’ve always been committed to offering financial aid and making the camp accessible, which makes it extra hard to get the numbers to work.

With so many new opportunities to expand our impact in more cost-effective ways, we have actually been moving in this direction for several years. It’s the reason we chose to only do 1 session each of the past 2 summers after doing 3 sessions per summer for the 10 years before the pandemic — in order to downsize and streamline our work so that we could expand to create new programs online.

When we got the news recently that the beautiful venue we’ve been at the past 2 summers had been sold and is no longer available, it felt like the writing was on the wall for us to take a hiatus this summer to re-evaluate and be able to move forward with other ideas.

New Possibilities

They say “Necessity is the mother of invention.” And during the pandemic, that was definitely true for us. We found many creative ways to bring our core camp curriculum out into the world.

We can teach YEA Camp’s curriculum on many platforms

Right at the start of the pandemic I started offering classes over Zoom called the Changemakers Challenge. I taught these classes every Monday-Friday for 3 months, which I absolutely loved and which got great reviews. Also in the first weeks of quarantine, a group of about 20 past YEA Campers and staff started meeting regularly over Zoom to brainstorm alternatives to doing camp in-person.

We ended up creating Virtual YEA Camp, which we did for 10 amazing week-long sessions over 2020-2021.

These were our first real forays into online programs, and they were great successes. (I’ve started retroactively referring to this time as YEA 2.0 and this new move for us as YEA 3.0)

In addition to those great programs, we had lots of other ideas that we didn’t do. We knew we couldn’t do all the ideas. But those ideas, and lots of new ones, have stuck with me.

The Possibilities Are Endless

We are really just limited by our imagination and resources, but some of our ideas of programs we could create in the years to come include:

• Online courses about topics we teach at YEA Camp for people of all ages to watch anytime
• A podcast interviewing inspiring changemakers and role models
• Online activist school to teach people how to make a bigger difference
• Text and email challenges to support people getting started and being more effective
• An online resource center to help people just starting out
• Membership program for on-demand videos and training
• Group coaching for community support
• Youtube/TikTok/Instagram video trainings to reach anyone with the internet and any curiosity about social change
• Homeschool, in-school, and after-school curriculum to share our work with students, parents, and teachers
• Outschool Zoom classes to reach students where they are
• Building out and more strategically promoting my ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World, to reach more people
• In-person trainings at conferences, festivals, large summer camps, school assemblies, or other events

And lots more possibilities.

Of course we still can’t do all of the ideas! But that’s where you come in!

What’s Next

We will be going through a strategic planning process to evaluate the best next moves for us. We’ve got lots of content already created and will start sharing that on different platforms and iterating as we go.

We’re still a teeny organization with a big vision, but without the in-person camp, which takes so much of our time and resources to put on, we will have more bandwidth to work on these new ideas and re-evaluate from there.

There will be ways for you to get involved, if you want to be!

One way you can start is by filling out this form! We would love to hear your ideas, suggestions, contacts, or visions for the future of YEA Camp or how you would like to be involved.

You can sign up for our email list here to be kept in the loop about our new programs and resources.

A year from now we might decide that we want to go back to doing the camp in person. With more time, we can research another great venue for summer 2025. Or, maybe we don’t move back to in-person in that format. There’s a lot to consider and many possibilities.

As sad as I am about not doing camp in-person this summer, I’m inspired by the possibilities to expand our impact.

And of course, the more resources we have, the more programming we can deliver, the more lives we can impact. If you’re inspired and able to help support making this new vision a reality, it will be a huge help.

15 Amazing Years

It’s been 15 incredible years of YEA Camp

This year is our 15th anniversary! I can’t believe it.

In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing some favorite memories and achievements to reminisce and celebrate our accomplishments. We’d love for you to share any of your reflections here.

As we approach the new year, I am trying to embrace the unknown.

While I’m nervous about this pivot in our work, I’m confident that it’s the right strategic move for us.  I feel we at least have to try.

I hope that those of you who have believed in us, supported us, been part of our programs over the past 15 years — as campers, staff, parents, volunteers, donors, advisors, friends, and fans — will continue to believe in us and stay engaged in our work.

To me, YEA Camp has always been a labor of love. And it has always been much more difficult in the winter because I’m often “laboring” alone. The memories of last summer are fading, and the next summer feels far away.

Now everything feels even farther and more uncertain and lonely.

But I am optimistic and excited. I know that our next phase will be easier to create than developing YEA Camp from scratch was all those years ago.

And that all of the amazing experiences, people, and learnings of the past 15 years will help us make an even bigger impact.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for all the ways you’ve contributed to YEA Camp and to my life personally and professionally over the years, and for all you do to make our world a better place.

I will always be grateful for achieving my dreams in creating and running YEA Camp for all these years.

I’m sure only a small fraction of the countless people who helped make it possible will ever read or hear these words, so extra thanks to those who do.

Whatever ways you have been involved in YEA Camp (or not), feel free to reach out to me anytime at nora @ yeacamp.org if you want to talk more about any of this, reminisce about YEA Camp, or to plan our next steps as we continue to work to help more people make a bigger difference to bring about social justice.

The post YEA Camp Is Reinventing Itself appeared first on YEA Camp.

My time at YEA Camp was an experience like no other. On the plane ride there, I had no idea what would happen and how I’d feel after the 9 days. I was surprised in the best possible way.

There is so much to learn at YEA Camp. I went there with a huge amount of knowledge about animal rights and the environment but not so much about other social justice issues. The discussion-based workshops enabled me to learn from other people who were passionate about those other social justice issues, which broadened my scope of what I can use my newfound activist voice for. No matter how much you know or don’t know, there will be something that YEA Camp can teach you.

The biggest thing that I gained from the week was the true empowerment that came from being surrounded by other incredible campers and staff who care deeply about the world. The community that was built by the second day of camp continued to strengthen over the course of the week. I found friends that I’ve continued to stay in touch with since. I’ve met up with a few already — and it’s been two weeks since I left. The moment I got onto the plane back home, I already started to miss everyone. It felt weird to leave; the camp felt like a home.

I went into YEA Camp wanting to make change, with the passion that I did not know how to use. Coming out of the experience, I know exactly my next steps and how I can be an activist every day, for the rest of my life.

If you’re interested in attending YEA Camp yourself or want to suggest it to someone ages 12-17 in your life, please visit YEACamp.org. We’ll be announcing our upcoming dates for next summer soon.

The post My Experience of a Lifetime at YEA Camp appeared first on YEA Camp.

Well, we can hardly believe it, but Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp is preparing for its 15th (!) summer training aspiring activists! (Two of those were virtual because of the Covid pandemic, but they still count in our book!)

So. after 32 in-person camps, 12 virtual sessions, and lotssss of testimonials, we are pretty confident we know what to expect. And we want you to know too!

So here, in no particular order, are 15 things you can expect as a camper (or guardian of a camper, or even as a staff member!) at YEA Camp this summer.

1. Finding Your People and Fitting In Perfectly

Our campers are some of the best humans in the world. They literally want to spend part of their summer vacation learning how they can make a bigger difference in the world. If only everyone wanted to do that! But many of our campers tell us that at school they sometimes (or maybe always) feel like that they don’t quite fit in, or that they are one of the only people at their school who cares about a certain issue.

At YEA Camp, they fit in perfectly. They’ll meet people just as passionate as they are about a certain cause. And they’ll meet people who are super passionate about other causes they might not know as much about.

And then of course there’s our amazing staff! These are some of the best role models a young person could ask for.(We’re hiring, by the way!)

These are like-minded people who can be friends or mentors for life and have way more in common than classmates at school. If you’re wondering what to expect from other campers or staff at YEA Camp, if you’re passionate about making a difference on progressive causes, we know you’ll fit right in.

2. Feeling Hopeful and Inspired

Don’t get us wrong. If you’re paying attention to the state of the world, there are lots of reasons to be demoralized and pissed off. We actually talk a lot about that at YEA Camp. This is not some Polyanna utopia where we tell you that everything is magically going to be OK. We’re not going to solve all of the world’s problems by the end of camp.

But you will learn how change happens and meet other people who are making a difference on the causes you care about. You will see that while we have every right to be angry or down about the state of the world, there are also reasons for optimism that can inspire action.  Our campers report feeling much more hopeful about the state of the world after camp than when they arrived.

YEA Camp’s Changemaker Toolbox

3. Build Your Changemaker Toolbox

Everything we do at YEA Camp is designed to develop 4 core areas that we feel are critical for activists.

First is knowledge. Knowledge about problems in the world and knowledge about solutions to those problems.

Next is skills to actually do something about those problems.

Then there’s building confidence. Developing knowledge and skills also builds confidence, but we will go a lot deeper than that.

And finally, there’s community so that you know you’re not alone. And you’re definitely not.

(More on all of these below!)

4. Figuring Out What to Do

Our campers show up to YEA Camp passionate about making an impact on at least one cause, but often they don’t know what to do or how or why to do it.

You’ll have the first half of camp to learn about different issues. Then, at about the midway point, you’ll get to choose what we call your Issue of Importance (IOI). This is the issue you primarily want to focus on.

At YEA Camp, we will teach you what we call the 4 Levels of Activism. This will give you tons of ideas to help you get started.

Then we’ll teach skills like effective communication, campaign planning, fundraising, grassroots outreach, and lots more. Want to learn more about politics? You’re in the right place. Maybe you want to start a school club? We’ve got you covered.

These are all actions you can take to make a difference on the cause you care about in a way that inspires you.

Don’t worry. You actually don’t need to know that much to get started on any of these things, but YEA Camp is one of the only places where you can get just enough training to get started or get serious about making a difference.

5. Figuring Out What to Say

Sometimes the hardest part about being an activist can be knowing what to say in different situations.

Maybe someone is legitimately curious about your cause, and you have a chance to educate and inspire them! Fantastic! At YEA Camp, you’ll develop your talking points, your elevator pitch, and your answers to the most frequently asked questions about your issue.

On the other hand, sometimes people just want to give us a hard time and don’t actually care about our cause. We’ll teach you about the Spectrum of Agreement, which will help you know how to handle this. Some people just aren’t worth your time, and we’ll help you prepare for these situations so you can handle yourself with poise.

What if you have a chance to do public speaking or to talk with a decision maker with power over your issue? We’ll help you with that too!

Everyone gets better with practice.

6. Using Your Unique Passions and Creativity For Your Cause

Are you passionate about art — whether it’s visual art like painting or music and spoken word? We do a workshop on arts activism to help you express yourself creatively for your cause! Maybe you love social media? We will teach you some key tools to apply those skills to get the word out about your issue.

We all have certain things we love to do or are just good at. Maybe you love to write or cook or skateboard?

There are so many ways to make a difference, and they are not all going to protests or public speaking.

We’ll do a whole activity to help you brainstorm how to creatively apply your natural gifts and passions for a cause you care about.

7. Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs

We mentioned that as you learn more about your cause and what to do about it, it will build your confidence. But we all have self doubts and limiting beliefs that can hold us back. Really, we hold ourselves back when we believe these things.

We get deep into this. What do you tell yourself about why you can’t be successful? Why do you think people won’t listen to you? Is that actually true and a legitimate reason? Did you come out of the womb as someone who is “shy,” “a procrastinator,” or for whatever other reason you might have not able to make an impact? We think not!

Developing a positive mental attitude will help you in every aspect of your life in and outside of activism.

We describe the food at YEA Camp as kid-friendly vegan.

8. Eat Amazing Food!

YEA Camp takes our food very seriously!

We are powering the next generation of changemakers, and that means we need to feed you well!

To us “well” means several things.

It means the food has to be a perfect combo of healthy, delicious, filling, and ethical. That’s why we have the most amazing chefs cooking at YEA Camp!

Want to know more about the food at YEA Camp or even see some sample menus to know what to expect?

Read more about our food here!

9. Silliness and Fun

YEA Camp is not all serious workshops and vegan brownies. We do a lot of goofy activities and offer 2-3 hours a day of free time with lots of fun activities to choose from.

YEA Camp is held at a camp right on a like, where campers love to go swimming or kayaking. We have a basketball court, a Gaga pit, volleyball, soccer, or picnic tables if you just want to hang out and chat.

Whether you like to get up early to go for a run or do yoga, or you prefer to sleep in and rest, there’s a great combo of camp time and down time to enjoy your summer.

YEA Camp has beautiful, modern camp facilities

10. Beautiful and Comfortable Facilities Out In Nature

YEA Camp is held at a gorgeous camp in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts. Not sure what to expect from our cabins? Don’t worry! Our facilities are super modern and comfortable. Of course there are the basics, like cabins with electricity and indoor bathrooms. Plus there’s gorgeous views while we eating overlooking the lake, and fresh air and quiet away from the busyness of city life. Well see geese and birds and squirrels and if we’re lucky, some deer. We’re pretty sure you’ll see more stars at YEA Camp than you do at home, too!

11. Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

Changing the world can look lots of different ways, and we want you to build your muscles for taking action in ways that might push your comfort.

What if you had the opportunity to speak to your whole class, your whole school, or maybe your school principal, or the city council about your cause? Would you do it or would you say no because you’d be too nervous?

We will create an environment where you will be able to challenge your comfort zone. Don’t worry. We won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. But we will encourage you because YEA Camp is designed to train you in a way that will make it easier for you to say yes and step up in the future when it really counts.

12. Learning to Take Better Care of Yourself

It might seem like activism is all  about helping others, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll burn out fast.

And as changemakers, we can struggle with the extra challenges that come along with paying attention to what’s happening in the world and the obstacles we face along the way trying to make a difference on them.

At YEA Camp, we do a whole Self Care activity where you’ll get to try out different ways of taking care of yourself, which is a super important life skill.

Whether it means getting enough sleep, maintaining healthy relationships, having positive self talk, managing your time better, feeling our feelings, developing healthy coping mechanisms, or not taking it personally when you don’t get the results you’re hoping for, it is up to each of us to take good care of ourselves so that we’re also able to make a difference for others.

13.  Developing an Action Plan for When You Get Home

By the end of our time together at YEA Camp, you will get to create an action plan for how you want to make a difference when you get home.

This action plan is not something you have to do, and in fact it will probably change once you get home and start taking action, but it will give you direction. Maybe your action plan is to start an environmental club at your high school, but when you get to school this fall you find out that there already is an environmental club. That’s actually great news! You can join that club and adjust your plan from there.

At camp, you’ll get to work in small groups with a staff member who has experience working on your IOI and with other campers who are just as passionate as you are about that issue. We’ll help you come up with SMART goals and teach you an important skill called backward-planning to set you up for success. We’ll also have you do some important time management techniques to consider your priorities and to be realistic while also making time for what matters most to you.

You can expect some amazing humans at YEA Camp!

14. Having a Community To Support You

Most people will make friends at a camp that they go to. That’s basic for what to expect.

But at YEA Camp you can expect to make even more meaningful friendships because of all our campers have in common and because of the depth of the activities we do at camp.

This is extra important for once camp ends. Of course we all want to have more friends, but having people who really understand what you’re trying to do to make a difference is even more important for changemakers at YEA Camp.

Of course, it’s up to each person to take the initiative to stay in touch after camp. But what you can expect is a community of people who will be rooting for you when things get challenging and cheering for you when you share a success.

15. Being Proud of Who You Are

One thing that has been heartbreaking to us over the years at the start of camp is to see how many of our campers have been bullied or made fun of for caring about making our world a better place.

It can be tempting to believe criticism from haters or people who don’t have the courage of their convictions, but that’s not who YEA Campers are.

You will leave YEA Camp proud of yourself for caring, for taking action, and for being someone actively working to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

What to Expect: A Life-Changing Camp for World-Changing Teens

This is really just scratching the surface, but we hope this helps you learn a little bit more about what to expect at YEA Camp!

As we celebrate our 15th year, we are always looking to improve and grow, and so we are hoping for the unexpected too!

If you want to learn more about YEA Camp, check out these testimonials from past campers, parents, and staff, read all the details on our website www.yeacamp.org, send us a message, or sign up here!

We hope to see you this summer and that YEA Camp is everything you expect and more.

The post What to Expect at YEA Camp appeared first on YEA Camp.

This year we moved to a beautiful new location in western Massachusetts. For the first time ever, we were on a lake with not only swimming but kayaking, which the campers (and staff!) loved. These, plus basketball and Gaga, were some of our campers’ favorite free-time activities.

Our campers often tell us that they are surprised how fun YEA Camp is! We aim to show that activism needs to be sustainable. The problems of our world are upsetting, and we are honest that activism can be emotional, tiring, and stressful. To model a healthy approach to activism, we prioritize having lots of fun, in addition to learning from our curriculum.

The most common piece of feedback we receive from our campers year after year is to make YEA Camp longer. This year we listened! Granted, campers typically want it to be for the whole summer (or even YEA School!), but still. This was our longest YEA Camp ever, at 9 days — from Saturday to the following Sunday. This allowed us to incorporate more content into our curriculum and to offer more free time each day.

But the most important thing about YEA Camp this summer was how amazing our campers and staff were, and the inspiring action plans they developed to make a difference on the causes they care about once they go home. Our campers and staff came from 17 different states — all the way from Washington, Oregon, and California, to nearby Western Massachusetts — and their passion for social justice issues like racial equity, LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, climate change, animal protection, gun control, and more, gave us all hope.

YEA Camp Curriculum Basics

Much of our curriculum this summer focused on our framework of looking at 4 different levels of activism. These can be applied to any social justice issue.

The internal level of activism doesn’t bring about change directly, but it creates the conditions for it. It is the preparation we all need to do to be able to make change on the other 3 levels.

Internal activism includes doing research to understand a social problem and potential solutions to it, processing emotions about the issue so you can approach it with a clear head, understanding and owning your personal story, learning how to respond to common misconceptions and FAQs about the issue, and researching organizations working on the cause that you may want to connect with.

The individual level of activism includes actions that you can take on your own, without relying on other people to take action. These seemingly small actions don’t bring about huge changes on their own, but they add up over time and can influence others. Without many people taking individual actions, change at the community or institutional level is much less likely.

Depending on the issue you’re trying to address, this level includes anything from eating less meat, taking public transportation, boycotting unethical companies or products, buying less stuff, speaking up when someone does something racist or homophobic, or picking up letter.

The community level  of activism involves spreading the word about actions you want people to take. It can be as simple as publicizing the actions you are already privately taking.

We can publicize problems and their solutions on social media, do a school project or presentation at school, write for a blog or the school newspaper, or have an old-school conversation to get the word out about a cause and to encourage others to do something about it.

The institutional level of activism is where we see large-scale, long-term changes. Institutional change is not possible (or at least is unlikely for progressive causes) without the previous foundational levels of activism.

This includes registering and mobilizing voters, speaking at public hearings to influence community decision-makers,  setting up a meeting with the school administration, or pressuring leaders through mass protests or other forms of advocacy.

We encourage our campers to think about the institutional changes we need, as well as the individual and community level actions required to help manifest these changes.

If you want to learn more about YEA Camp’s approach to activism, download our free ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World.

Choosing Their IOI

At about the midway point of camp, each camper chooses what we call their IOI, or Issue of Importance. This is the cause they will focus on for the rest of camp and beyond. We put them in a small group with other campers passionate about that issue along with an experienced staff advisor.

Much of the second half of camp is spent working with this group to think more deeply about their issue.

Campers think about core problems related to their cause and what to do about them. They develop and practice their talking points in response to common FAQs. Along with their staff advisor, they create and present info posters to educate the rest of camp about their IOI. They brainstorm actions they could take at each of the 4 levels of activism we teach about. And ultimately they each create an action plan for how they want to make a difference once camp is over.

These action plans included starting school clubs, launching fundraisers, publicity campaigns on social media, and lots more. It was so inspiring to hear campers share these plans and their visions for the future.

We are so grateful for our amazing staff members who led our workshops, advised campers in their small groups to develop their action plans, played and supervised games on free time, supported campers with any number of issues (from homesickness to actual physical sickness) and just generally hung out and befriended our campers and served as incredible role models throughout camp and beyond.

One of the most impactful aspects of YEA Camp is just bringing together our incredible campers with our experienced and inspiring staff both to hold the space and ensure the safety and success of camp, but also to provide examples and potentially long-term connections with changemakers working on making a difference in a wide variety of ways.

Towards the end of the week, many of our campers wrote thank you letters to staff to show their appreciation for our hard work and commitment. Seeing these letters was so inspiring and validating for all of our staff.

Each staff member went above and beyond this summer, doing countless things throughout the day that may go unnoticed but helped make YEA Camp such a success. It was beautiful to see that our campers noticed!

You can read some more of our camper appreciation letters on our Instagram.

It’s always so hard to explain what a session of YEA Camp was like. From the friendships and silliness, to serious discussions and learning, to confidence-building and epiphanies, up through their action plans…. It’s impossible to capture it in a blog post.

Ultimately, the only way to understand what YEA Camp is like  is to join us yourself!

Check back on our website at www.yeacamp.org to see our upcoming dates for next summer, other programs we are offering, or to apply to work with us.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped make another year of YEA Camp possible! This includes all of our amazing campers and families, staff, volunteers, and donors. YEA Camp is truly a labor of love. The impact of our work is only possible thanks to all of you! We will be seeing the ripple effects through our campers’ activism in the years to come.

We look forward to another life-changing summer, new digital offerings, and staying connected in the year to come.

The post First In-Person YEA Camp in 3 Years Was a Success! appeared first on YEA Camp.

One of the many things that makes YEA Camp so special is our amazing staff! Several of our staff this summer have been with us before, while others are with us for the first time!

So many of our campers have said that YEA Camp was one of the best experiences of their life, and this is the crew to help us replicate that experience for this year’s campers!

YEA Camp helps aspiring activists get started or get serious about making a bigger difference in the world, and these are the amazing humans who will be on our team making it happen!

Check out some of our amazing team members, and if you or someone you know are ages 12-17 and want to make a bigger difference, join us this summer in Hinsdale, MA, from August 6-14!

Nora Kramer, YEA Camp Founder and Director 

Nora Kramer founded YEA Camp in 2009 after 10 years as an activist, always looking to make a bigger difference. From working on political campaigns to handing out tens of thousands of leaflets and collecting thousands of signatures, to writing letters, giving talks, and training new activists, Nora’s been obsessed with activism since before our campers were born.

Through grassroots outreach, Nora met many young people who cared deeply about social issues but didn’t know what to do about them. She started focusing on working with youth, getting her teaching credential and teaching high school English, environmental education, at after-school programs, and — of course — at camps, where she is inspired by the idealism, silliness, honesty, and courage of young people.

Recognizing the need for aspiring activists to get training and support to become changemakers on causes they care about, Nora developed the idea and primary curriculum for YEA Camp. As a lifelong learner, Nora has pulled from her own activist education to develop YEA Camp’s unique curriculum, which infuses learnings from social justice, activism, leadership, mindfulness, and personal development trainings. She loves this creative way to combine her commitment to social change with her passion for working with youth, and spends all year looking forward to summer.

Alice Ragland, Assistant Director

Alice Ragland is a college professor and community educator with a background in environmental and racial justice activism. She has a PhD in Multicultural and Equity Studies in education from The Ohio State University. She teaches, writes, and researches in the areas of cultural studies, ethnic studies, and Black studies. She has facilitated hundreds of educational workshops for schools, businesses, and nonprofit organizations to help people understand systems of injustice. 

Alice was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, where she experienced and witnessed injustices that sparked her activism at age 12.  After spending years deeply immersed in racial and environmental justice activism, she saw the many ways in which oppression takes a physical toll and leads to health disparities. Wanting to do more than just teach people about the systems that cause health inequity, she became a licensed community health worker and certified yoga instructor. She strives to combine her passions for education and health equity, two interrelated aspects of justice work that are too often separated. Alice also enjoys playing the flute, making recycled jewelry and crafts, and traveling with her family. 

Alina de Zoysa, Operations Manager

Alina de Zoysa (they/them) is from New Jersey and is a rising sophomore at Washington and Lee University and planning to major in Sociology and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies as well as Poverty and Human Capabilities studies. They are extremely excited to be a part of the YEA Camp staff once again this year, and it is even more exciting that this will be their first time in person at YEA Camp! 

Alina is truly passionate about advocacy and community engagement, specifically focusing on racial justice, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, incarceration system reform, poverty, mental health, and many other pressing issues that are constantly affecting our world each and every day. Alina is looking forward to working with the outstanding campers and fellow staff at YEA Camp this year! 

Emmanuel Barchue Jr, Counselor

Emmanuel Barchue Jr. is a graduate of the Urban Teachers Education Program at Rutgers University Newark, where he received a degree in mathematics and a K-12 teacher certification in mathematics. Professionally, Emmanuel has worked and volunteered with a variety of organizations including NJ PIRG, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Rutgers Future Scholars, a program for middle school and high school students. He currently works at the Burlington County Institute of Technology (Medford Tech) and teaches summer school with The Learning Point at Foundation Academy Charter School in Trenton, NJ. He plans on pursuing a master’s degree in education and mathematics.

When it comes to education, Emmanuel agrees with the quote, “We must Maslow before We Bloom.” He believes outstanding educators excel in motivating their students by getting to know them as more than just a name on a roster because educators have to show students that they care about them as a human being before they are able to teach them. As a first generation college graduate and a STEM educator, he hopes to give back to the next generation and instill a love for learning and an ambition to change the world within each and every student. He hopes to inspire, nurture, and cultivate the next generation of leaders.

When he is not in the classroom, he enjoys watching anime, playing basketball, eating, and spending time with his bunny rabbits. Some of his  favorite authors are Masashi Kishimoto, Tite Kubo, and Akira Toriyama.

Lydia Cohen Harris, Counselor

Lydia Cohen Harris (she/her) is over the moon about returning to YEA Camp as a counselor for the third time! Her foremost passion in life is taking action for all animals, human and nonhuman. She has worked and volunteered with animal rights organizations such as Mercy For Animals, The Humane League, Farm Animals Rights Movement, Vegan Outreach, and Farm Sanctuary. More recently, Lydia earned her MA from NYU in the spring of 2022. She looks forward to bringing her experience to YEA Camp, and she cannot wait to learn and grow with campers as they make action plans to help the world change for the better!

James McLaughlin McDermott, Counselor 

James McLaughlin-McDermott lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a theatre teacher for the New York City Department of Education. He began his career as an actor and director in the greater NYC area. This eventually lead him into the world education where he spent 8 years working in special education. In 2020, James completed his Master’s Degree in Childhood Education, and was hired as a theatre teacher to a diverse population. James immediately knew that he had to do more, and received a certification for Human Rights Consultation. He uses this to create a diverse and inclusive curriculum within his classroom, because as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, he understands the importance of representation. James has a passion for learning, creating, and advocating. He is excited to be a part of YEA Camp this year to learn and grow with the campers! 

Nia Richardson, Counselor

My name is Nia Richardson and my pronouns are she/her and I’m from New Jersey. I recently graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in Sociology. I am currently taking a gap year and plan to spend that year teaching English in South Korea. I then plan to get my Ph.D. in School Psychology and become a school psychologist. I love getting involved in different community service projects and I am also very interested in studying topics such as racism, privilege, mental health, and the education system.

Jeri Schneider, Head Chef

Jeri is thrilled to have been a chef and head chef at YEA Camp for four years. She enjoys working with a kitchen team to turn out tasty and nutritious vegan meals for everyone. Her social justice activism goes back a long way: she has advocated for tenants’ rights; organized for systemic changes to end homelessness; protested wars and police violence against the Black community; served on the board of directors for a statewide nonprofit that promotes the benefits of a vegan lifestyle for animals, health, and the environment; marched for and celebrated LGBTQ+ rights; worked for racial equity in education and within the animal advocacy and vegan movement; and taught vegan cooking classes. She works as a high school librarian during the school year, so of course she enjoys reading, as well as running, hiking, and mountain biking.

Larry Sanchez, Chef

Larry enjoys cooking vegan meals and organic gardening/permaculture. He also enjoys baking sourdough bread from scratch, fermenting and making homemade sodas. 

Larry and his wife Yena have three children and three grandchildren. Larry homeschools his two teen sons Samuel and Solomon, both raised vegan since birth and both YEA Campers. His wife works at the local homeless shelter in their hometown. 

Larry was a mess cook in the US Navy from 1987 to 1991 and has spent 5 summers as a camp chef, including a previous summer at YEA Camp.  Larry is the 12th born of 14 children in his family. His parents were migrant farm workers from Texas who later settled in Fremont, Ohio. 

Corri Sheehy, Chef

My name is Corri Sheehy (she/they), I’m an animal rights activist and a baker from Richmond, VA. I have a background in visual arts, cooking, and I opened a vegan bakery last fall with my family. I was a camper at YEA Camp twice and this will be my third year participating as a staff member! I’m so excited to be working as an Assistant Chef this summer, I can’t wait to meet everyone and make some wonderful food.

This is a partial list of our amazing team, so please check back as we update it!

These few paragraphs barely scratch the surface at how amazing these humans are! If only every young activist could have such outstanding and experienced changemakers supporting them in their world-changing endeavors! At least every camper at YEA Camp will!

If you or someone you know is 12-17 and wants to make a bigger difference in the world, there’s just 8 spots and a few weeks left to sign up! Hope to see you there!

The post Meet Our Amazing YEA Camp Staff! appeared first on YEA Camp.