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.

Given the continued uncertainty and risks of Covid, and how great Virtual YEA Camp was last  year, we felt good about our choice to hold YEA Camp virtually again — and it turned out great!

All in all, we held 4 sessions and had almost 100 campers. We had amazing guest speakers and inspiring activities, raised thousands of dollars for great causes, learned so much, strengthened our community, and saw huge growth in our campers.

It’s so hard to explain YEA Camp in a blog post. Yet, every year we try!

Here are some ways our campers said in their evaluation they would describe Virtual YEA Camp to a friend:

• a fun, empowering, and educating experience where you stepped outside of your comfort zone and made a difference.
• A great experience with absurdly nice people who show you easy but often ignored ways to make a difference.
• YEA Camp is a diverse, engaging, and social camp about activism that helps you raise money, make friends, and learn.
• I would describe it as a wonderful community experience where you get to learn about important issues in the world while also just having fun with the other campers!
• The Best Camp Ever

How Does Virtual YEA Camp Compare to In-Person YEA Camp?

It took months of about 20 past YEA Campers and staff having planning meetings to figure it out last year, but eventually, we came up with an exciting, dynamic schedule and curriculum to bring the best of what we do in-person into a virtual setting.

We asked fundamental questions, like “what makes a camp a camp if it’s remote?” And “what are the most important parts of YEA Camp that we need to find a way to do virtually?” And “how can we create a curriculum where people could join us for 1, 2, 3, or 4 sessions where each session could stand on its own?”

We also found ways to take advantage of the benefits of doing camp virtually, like being accessible to more campers, attracting amazing guest speakers, and working on activist projects together.

Virtual YEA Camp is a combination of:

• Workshops – similar to the activism training we do at in-person camps (learning about problems in the world and building skills and confidence to address them)
• Change the World (CTW) small groups – campers work on activist projects together (fundraising, advocacy, raising awareness) collaborating with other campers and a counselor passionate about the same cause
• Happy Hour – activities that are similar to what we do at camp during free time, and conducive to Zoom. Some we did this year were improv games, cooking classes,  yoga,  digital arts activism, and virtual visits to animal sanctuaries.
• Evening activities – similar to our in-person YEA Camp activities, like Show Off + Tell and the YEA Show, along with a game night, discussion night, and sharing action plans.

Did we mention that it was super fun?!

Playing activist trivia, a scavenger hunt, baking cookies, and just making friends was a blast. And our Pet Cuteness Contests were actually the cutest!

One of the most special parts of in-person YEA Camp is the love and sense of community. That’s where we knew doing the camp virtually could feel different. Surprising even to us, there was a lovefest at Virtual YEA Camp as well.

Here are some of the comments from the chat as we said our goodbyes on Friday.

• Stefani: THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE!! I’ll never forget the memories and friends made during yea camp !!!!!
• Noelle: This was amazing! Don’t forget us all when you do great things for this world! 《3
• Dax: Thank you to all the counselors for teaching me and thank you to all my teammates for helping me and thank you to everyone!!!!!!
• Gigi: Thank you thank you thank you to everyone. You all inspire me so much
• Eliza: thank you so much everybody this past month was amazing
• Nicole:  Thank you. I will never forget this amazing experience.
• Jack: THANK every single one of you

We’re not crying! You’re crying! (And Jack’s crying!)

Our Incredible Speakers and Staff

We are so proud that all of our staff members and many of our guest speakers are not only incredible activists but are previous YEA Campers or staff members themselves who were able to bring their experience from in-person YEA Camp into the virtual setting.

One of the best parts about Virtual YEA Camp is the incredible, highly qualified staff and guest speakers who were able to join us who otherwise might not be able to be with us in-person, and that our staff was able to participate while juggling their busy activist lives! Like:

• Julia Clark, who, as the VP of the Black Student Movement at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, was successfully campaigning to protest the scandal of the school declining tenure to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
• Rey Watson, who when not with us during virtual camp hours was doing activism on lots of different projects — working with their local Sunrise Hub to protest the PennEast Pipeline, protesting the animal abuse at SeaQuest, and rallying to pressure New Jersey’s governor to support a bill for clean jobs in their state
• Monica Carr, 4x YEA counselor who now lives in Guatemala and was able to join us on staff from another country, while other amazing staff members Alina de Zoysa, Liam-Davis-Bosch, Maya Diaz-Villalta, and Andina Aste-Nieto were able to juggle YEA Camp while busy preparing to go away to college for the first time, on vacation with family, having another part-time job, and/or managing other personal, family, and activist commitments.

And many of our amazing guest speakers would not have been able to attend YEA Camp in-person, like:

• Two former YEA Camp counselors who now have their PhDs in activist fields: Dr. Alice Ragland has a PhD in Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education, from Columbus, Ohio; and Dr. Abel Gomez, who recently completed his PhD and will be teaching in the department of Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma. They would not have been able to join us in-person
• An incredible activist (name withheld) who has long Covid and has been sick for well over year. This person would have been on staff with us this year and last year if not for Covid. Doing YEA Camp virtually meant that they could be a guest speaker and contribute so much from home.
• Too many other people to list (or to leave out!) who have full-time jobs, families, or commitments that made in-person YEA Camp not possible for them to attend but who were able to join us this virtually summer.

You can see just some of our speakers here.

It’s amazing for our campers to get to learn from such outstanding activists!

YEA Camp Curriculum

YEA Camp’s curriculum has been developed and iterated over the course of more than a decade, and over the past year and a half, we’ve worked on adapting it to an online setting.

At in-person as well as at Virtual YEA Camp, our curriculum is focused on developing:

• knowledge – about problems in the world
• skills – to be able to dress them effectively
• confidence – to speak up and take action, and
• community – to know you’re not alone and have the support you need

These core areas were built into our curriculum at each of our 4 sessions:

• Becoming a Changemaker: building a foundation for what activism is, examining your identity, and finding ways to make a difference for a cause that you care about in a way that inspires you
• Understanding the Issues: learning more about major problems in the world — like racism, gender equality, climate change and animal cruelty — and how those issues connect to one another, and many more
• Skills to Make a Difference: developing core activism skills that can be applied to any cause or issue, like campaign planning, fundraising, communication skills, and publicity.
• Careers for Changemakers: seeing examples of so many different ways people are making a difference in their careers, from being a social entrepreneur to a therapist, an attorney to a PhD.

Each week, campers got to learn from amazing youth activists — former YEA Campers just a few years further along. Campers worked in small Change the World groups to work on different activist projects on their cause. In their groups, they did advocacy, launched fundraisers, and educated themselves and others on their issue of importance.

Camper Accomplishments

Ultimately, YEA Camp is all about what our campers accomplish after camp is over.

But with Virtual YEA Camp, our campers did activism during camp!

They made Activism Starter Guides to educate themselves and others about their cause, they raised thousands of dollars for the nonprofits of their choice, and they did advocacy to reach out to decision-makers to make a request for their cause.

We’re still calculating the accomplishments, but in our campers’ words, here are some of what they accomplished:

• I made new friends, helped raise money for a great cause, learned new things, jumped out of my comfort zone, and became more aware of society’s problems.
• I made a more realistic and achievable action plan and I also made a call to a state representative!
• Met a lot of amazing activists and mentors, and created an action plan for after camp.
• I learned so much about being an activist, and I got to plan for what comes next, and meet so many amazing people.
• I helped create a campaign guide for the Green New Deal!
• Called my congress representative and raised money for Greenpeace!
• I shared our fundraiser and got tons of my family involved and helped them to become more aware. We surpassed our fundraising goal!
• I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and it ended up being really fun.

And so much more!

What’s next

What’s next for our campers is changing the world! They all have action plans to make a difference on their cause, and now they have a community to cheer them on along the way.

What’s next for YEA Camp is very much up in the air! There is so much to decide on from here.

We’re going to celebrate our accomplishments and rest for a bit.

We’ll debrief the million things we did well and the million things we can do better.

We’re also going to be saying thank you, thank you, thank you to so many people. To our staff, guest speakers, campers, their families, donors, and everyone else who has supported YEA Camp along the way.

Thank you to you.

And then we will be considering so many possibilities for where YEA Camp could go from here. We have so many ideas of programs we could do online in addition to hopefully being able to hold YEA Camp in person again soon.

What ideas do you have for us? Would you like to be part of the decision-making process? Our community is wide, from past campers, staff, parents, donors, volunteers, and other supporters, and we’d love to hear your input as we continue to reinvent and reimagine the next incarnations of YEA Camp.

To stay up to date on what we’re up to, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and on our email list.

Thanks again for all your support in making another successful YEA Camp summer possible!

The post Another Amazing YEA Camp Summer Training Young Activists Online appeared first on YEA Camp.

We mean that both from the perspective of all our campers have accomplished and the ways we have grown organizationally, but also literally in the sense of how unpredictable things often are at camp, and how much we’ve had to adapt and be resilient to changing circumstances in the moment.

From the time we found a new venue 2 weeks before the start of camp because the venue we had reserved was under evacuation due to forest fires, to that time the shuttle we had ordered to take campers back to the airport on the last day of camp didn’t show up — causing 7 kids to miss their flights(!) — to everything in between (we have some stories OMG!), we have been forced to adjust to unpredictable events and circumstances.

And so was the case for us (and sadly for the majority of the world’s population as well) this year with Covid-19.

For more than a decade, YEA Camp has been a summer camp for social change. When Covid made it clear that summer 2020 was going to need to look very different, we decided that YEA Camp would have to look different too.

Changemakers Challenge

Starting on March 15, just a few days after finding out schools would be closing in-person, our director Nora jumped into action to start teaching classes called The Changemakers Challenge, leading donation-based (nobody turned away for lack of funds) daily live Zoom calls every Monday-Friday on activist topics.

Not knowing what to expect with the pandemic, there wasn’t exactly a plan at first for how long these classes would go, but the students wanted to keep going with them and more students signed up, so all in all we held these classes for 12 consecutive weeks, every day Monday-Friday, with weeklong sessions such as World Changing 101, The Mindset of a Changemaker, and Communication Skills for Changemakers.

Virtual YEA Camp

During that time, a group of about a dozen past campers and staff formed a planning team to develop what YEA Camp could look like this summer. It was such an inspiring process to go from not knowing what a “virtual camp” even was (thanks Google!) to analyzing the things YEA Camp does best, what really makes something a camp versus classes or meetups, and envisioning activities and a schedule that could work well given the circumstances.

In the end, what we created was so fun, inspiring, and innovative! We served more than 100 campers from all over the US and Canada, with great results and reviews.

We held 4 sessions, World Changing 101, Exploring the Issues, Amplifying Your Message, and Careers for Changemakers. Each stood on its own for people to register for any 1 session, and the curriculum changed week to week so that our campers who were with us all summer were learning new things each week.

Our YEA Camp curriculum is always based on building knowledge, skills, confidence, and community, and with our virtual camp we found creative ways to do that.

We had daily Pajama Parties, where campers in small groups got to know each other better and form friendships with people who care just as much as they do about changing the world.

Camp wouldn’t be camp without free time activities like yoga and arts activism and vegan cooking classes, and while it’s not quite the same as camp at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary (where we held YEA Camp for 5 summers), we did virtual visits to animal sanctuaries that were the next best thing.

We did group evening activities similar to what we normally do at our in-person camps, like Show Off and Tell and our YEA Show.

And, as it worked out, we did some amazing things that we normally would not be able to do at in-person camps. We had guest speakers leading workshops and teaching about activism who would most likely never have been able to join us out in the woods. From changemakers like youth activist Genesis Butler, Toni Okamoto of Plant-Based on A Budget, former Camp Obama trainer Marquis Olison, and 20+ more incredible advocates to activist celebrities like Daniele Monet and Daisy Fuentes, our campers were exposed to so much wisdom and expertise to give them countless ideas and boundless inspiration to make a bigger impact.

We also were honored that many of our guest speakers were past YEA Campers, and all of our amazing counselors were past campers — all of whom have gone on to do incredible amounts of activism, which they all agreed YEA Camp helped them with along on their change-making path.

With everything being online, we were also able to have campers work on activist projects together. We divided everyone into CTW (Change the World, obviously!) groups based on their Issue of Importance (IOI), supported by a YEA Camp counselor (all of whom were past campers!) with expertise on that cause. We assigned everyone different CTW projects each week to register voters, raise money for the organization of their choice, advocate a decision-maker to take action, and think through and find a creative way to express the reasons their IOI exists and persists and why we should take action to address it.

In the end, our campers registered or reminded 1,306 people to vote by mail; they raised $13,416 for the nonprofit organizations of their choice; and made 5,533 advocacy calls, texts, or emails.

What’s Next

There are so many possibilities for what we can do next to build on the success of our new virtual programs!

Since camp we have been having regular SaturYEA meetups to work on activist projects together and keep the fun and community of camp alive, and we are excited to expand on this.

We are currently working on developing our YEA FAM — YEA’s Fellowship & Membership — to provide year-round programming, training, and support, as well as the fun and community, to help aspiring young activists pursue their dreams and goals. We’ll have regular classes, activities, game nights, and opportunities to bring the best of YEA Camp into our homes in all kinds of new ways.

We’re also planning our upcoming virtual camps and will announce those soon!

While of course we’d love to be with our campers in person, it’s been so inspiring and really fun to adapt our work into new ways and to find other creative outlets to help even more people make a bigger difference on the causes they care about.

Want to keep track of our plans? Join our email list and follow us on Facebook and Instagram!

Want to support our work to enable us to keep offering innovative programming, and to make our programs available to anyone who wants to attend regardless of their financial situation? Support our work here with a tax-deductible donation.

If you’d like to volunteer or be part of the team that helps create what’s next for YEA Camp, email us here!

Thank you so much to every single one of our campers, staff, parents, volunteers, and donors who helped make this incredible year of YEA Camp possible — and all of those who have helped us survive and become resilient all these years up until now.

The post YEA Camp Continues to Adapt to Changing Times appeared first on YEA Camp.

In November, YEA Camp launched the first-ever “Volunteer-a-thon” designed to encourage people to get more involved in community service and activism, and to do it publicly with greater accountability. The best part? The Volunteer-a-thon is a fundraiser, with all money raised going to the YEA Camp Scholarship Fund. For many campers who participated, it was an opportunity to pay forward their own experience to make it possible for someone else to attend in the future.

Each year, we receive dozens of financial aid requests from passionate activists who want to experience YEA Camp but do not have the monetary means to do so. In 2019, YEA Camp granted financial aid to 51 of our 100 participants and full scholarships to 17 of those participants. Overall, you helped us fund over $66,400 worth of financial aid. 

None of that would be possible without the generous support of our YEA Camp community. That is what made the Volunteer-a-Thon so special for us. By participating, our campers were paying forward their experiences to the next summer of activists. 

What was the Volunteer-a-Thon anyway?

Instead of trying to raise money by training for a marathon or selling cookies, members of our camp community created a donor page asking for they’d ask their loved ones to sponsor to their activism. 

Mia Jay-Pachirat is a two-time youth camper from New York City whose Issue of Importance (IOI) is climate change. For the Volunteer-a-Thon, she created an art zine focused on NYC-specific solutions to climate change. 

When asked about her experience with the Volunteer-a-Thon, Mia said, “It really pushed me to keep my action plan and other little activism acts to the front of my mind!” You can read more about Mia’s experience here. 

B.T. Salle Widelock attended YEA Camp in 2019 and pledged to volunteer 30 hours for local organizations in his community. “I had an amazing experience at camp. That great experience can only be made possible with others’ help.” We are so honored that 7 members of B.T.’s family donated a total of $850 to support YEA Camp and B.T. — and thanks to two generous donors who offered matching gifts, those funds mean $2550 for our scholarship fund!

For some, the Volunteer-a-thon was all in the family. Camper Marley Goldman and her mom Gail are working to end the use of rodenticide in Washington state. Marley says, “I want other young aspiring activists to get the same kind of training and support that I did so that they can pursue whatever cause is important to them.”

We already shared with you about our amazing former campers Dima Bischoff-Hashem, Audrey Watson, and Danielle Holtz also participated in the Volunteer-a-Thon. You can read their reflections on camp and their projects here. 

And YEA Camp director Nora Kramer participated in the Volunteer-a-thon, too! Nora’s project was to reach out to at least 100 former campers from over the years to see if she could support them in her activism. Nora reported back that this was a huge success! “It was so inspiring how many of our campers shared their positive experiences of YEA Camp and even sharing that their memories from YEA Camp were some of the happiest memories of their childhood! Several donated to our Volunteer-a-Thon, several offered to volunteer and are now working on cool projects for us, and one camper even wrote this blog post reflecting on her experience at YEA Camp, looking back 5 years later! It was an honor and pleasure to be back in touch with such phenomenal people!”

You can see — and you can still support! — even more amazing changemakers who created fundraising pages here. We are so grateful to everyone who participated!

The Final Results

We were so excited to pilot the Volunteer-a-thon this year and so grateful to the fourteen members of our community who created pages and helped us raise almost $6,000! 

Thank you to everyone who dedicated their time, energy, and dollars into this exciting new program. We could not have done it without you. 

It’s not too late to make a final donation to our Volunteer-a-Thon to help YEA Camp make a bigger difference for even more people!

Time to register for summer 2020!

Are you interested in taking your activism to the next level? We’ve announced the dates for this summer and would love to have you there. 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)

The post YEA Camp Celebrates Success with First Ever Volunteer-a-Thon appeared first on YEA Camp.

We held the second session of YEA Camp for Adults at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in New Paltz, New York.

Here are some of the highlights from YEA Camp 2019.

Our 11th Summer

This was our 11th summer hosting YEA Camp for teens ages 12 – 17 and we are so grateful for the opportunity to work with these inspiring young people. 

Our first youth camp was held at Nature’s Classroom in Charlton, Massachusetts from July 13 – 20. Our second youth camp was held at Camp Buckhorn in Idyllwild, California from August 3 – 10. 

We had around fifty campers at each youth session representing two dozen states and three countries. 

From June 30 – July 6, 22 campers from 12 states stayed with us at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in New Paltz, New York for the second ever session of YEA Camp for Adults. From yoga in the morning to meeting with farmed animals after lunch, from workshops on gender and race to trainings on communication and fundraising, our campers had the perfect mix of self-care and reflection while also learning valuable skills to help advance their activism.

We love our YEA Camp Massachusetts staff!

Between the three sessions of camp, we were so blessed to have 35 amazing staff members from 16 different states.

Our Impact

Juan Antonio Nelson is an Iowa college student who flew all the way to New York to attend adult camp. When asked about the experience, he said, “Without YEA Camp, I wouldn’t feel that I could make a difference in my immediate community. I wouldn’t have the courage to stand up for others. If not for YEA Camp, I wouldn’t have met a strong community of activists who are passionately advocating for what they believe in.”

A few months ago, former YEA Camper and current YEA staff member Ananya Singh was featured on the Perennials Podcast. In the podcast, Ananya says, “When I was 12 years old, the summer before eighth grade, I attended this summer camp called Youth Empowered Action and this is a camp for teen activists and it really was a life changing experience for me. It exposes you to so many different social issues that are going on in the world and kind of takes the approach of intersectionality and showing how all of these issues are so interconnected and then really breaking down what is possible for young people to do.”

YEA Camp staff member Ananya Singh in action at the Morristown, New Jersey Climate Strike

We also recently shared the story of former YEA Camper Leah Kelly who FIVE years after attending camp, wrote this blog post where she says, “Five and a half years ago, as a 15-year-old, I attended Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp for the first time and my life was changed immeasurably. I can’t imagine how different my life would have been from then on had I not spent that pivotal week learning what it means to be an effective agent of change and forming lasting connections that supported, and continue to support me as I navigate a chosen path of social justice and fighting for what I believe in.”

Our Brand New Program

This year, we also launched the first-ever YEA Camp Volunteer-a-thon. The Volunteer-a-thon was created to encourage our community in service and activism while raising money for the YEA Camp Scholarship Fund. 

Dima Bischoff-Hashem created an awesome Volunteer-a-thon project supporting her Issue of Importance, animal rights!

Participants created donor pages, shared what activism they would be working on, and asked their loved ones to “sponsor” them in their work. You can read more about three of our camper’s projects at this link and click here to read what one camper wrote about the experience. 

All funds raised through the Volunteer-a-thon go towards the YEA Camp Scholarship Fund which makes camp accessible for all who want to attend. 

This year, 51 of our 100 participants received financial aid and 17 of those campers were on full scholarships. Overall, we funded $66,400 of financial aid this year.  

Our Gratitude

We cannot say thank you enough to everyone who made camp possible. From our food donors to our staff to our donors, thank you. 

Helping ourselves to vegan pizza with Miyoko’s Cheese and more toppings than we can count!

Thanks to two generous donors, we also have a special opportunity through the end of the year. All donations given before the end of the year will be TRIPLED. Click here to learn more and to donate to our Scholarship Fund. 

Every year at YEA Camp, we have the privilege of meeting passionate and activated changemakers who are taking the world by storm. We feel so grateful to be a part of their story and look forward to supporting you in making a bigger difference on the causes you care most about, too!

See You Next Summer

Do you want to experience YEA Camp for yourself next summer, or know someone who would love to join us? 

We are eagerly preparing for 2020 and are excited to offer an Early Bird special registration for $250 off those who sign up before the end of the year. Do you know someone who would be great for YEA Camp? Nominate them here!

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

See you next summer!

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