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.

The great news is that we will be holding another summer of Virtual YEA Camp again this year! Our virtual camp was so fun and impactful last summer, we are thrilled to be able to hold it again this year!

We’ll have a lot of the same amazing guest teachers and activities that were camper favorites, as well as incorporate new workshops, speakers, and activities to change things up. It’s going to be amazing!

Virtual YEA Camp is for aspiring activists ages 10-17 who want to make a difference in the world, and we’re so looking forward to helping these inspiring changemakers make an even bigger impact on the social justice causes they care about. 

Send any young people you know who would love Virtual YEA Camp to YEACamp.org for details and to register! We always make financial aid available to those who need it.

You might have figured out the not-so-great news. We won’t be holding YEA Camp in person this summer.

While we of course love being together in person, there is still so much uncertainty about Covid to feel we can ensure everyone’s safety for an in-person overnight setting, plus Virtual YEA Camp was so great in 2020, we’re thrilled to be able to offer it again!

Why Virtual YEA Camp

We created Virtual YEA Camp in 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic after months of planning meetings with past campers and staff. We were proud to create an amazing program that offered much of the best of what we do at in-person YEA Camp while also incorporating new components that we could only do virtually, like collaborating on activist projects in real time and having guest speakers and campers who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to attend in person. Our campers accomplished great things and the program got rave reviews.

In the summer of 2021, while there is great room for optimism with the Covid vaccine being administered and a return to normalcy hopefully upon us soon, in a sense there is even more uncertainty this summer than last summer.

By summertime, it’s predicted that most adults in the US who want to be vaccinated will be able to be, though that is still to be seen in all 50 states. Of course, the rollout of the vaccines has been notoriously less accessible to those with less privilege and fewer resources. The possibility of new variants of Covid makes things more uncertain. In addition, about a third of people in the US don’t plan to get vaccinated, which could mean Covid will still be with us for a long time. Importantly for summer camps, there is still no approved vaccine yet for youth under 16. Vaccines for young people are just now entering clinical trials. While most young people aren’t affected as seriously as adults are, long-term effects of Covid are unknown. Young people can also still be carriers and transmit Covid to others.

Especially since so many of the campers and staff who attend YEA Camp typically come from out of state and even by plane to join us, we felt that the only way to ensure the safety of our community and the community at large given all the unknowns and risk factors still with us in 2021 was to hold YEA Camp virtually again.

As much as we love doing YEA Camp in-person, our virtual camps were so impactful and successful this summer and winter, which made it a much easier decision for us to hold YEA Camp virtually again.

Join us this summer!
We are offering 4 sessions of Virtual YEA Camp that each build upon one another but also stand on their own, so you can register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 sessions.

The themes and dates for each session are:

Becoming a Changemaker | July 12 – 16, 2021
Understanding the Issues | July 19 – 23, 2021
Skills to Make a Difference | July 26 – 30, 2021
Careers for Changemakers | Aug 2 – 6, 2021

YEA Camp’s curriculum focuses on developing knowledge, skills, confidence, and community. 

At each session, campers will:

• learn how to make a bigger difference in the world: from planning a campaign or a fundraiser to finding your voice and speaking up about the causes you believe in
• make friends who care as much as you do
• do activism together on a cause you care about
• have tons of fun!

Get $50 off if you register by April 1!

We are so excited for another summer of Virtual YEA Camp! We look forward to holding in-person sessions of YEA Camp again in the summer of 2022.

To learn more about YEA Camp or to sign up, go to www.YEACamp.org.

The post Virtual YEA Camp Trains Aspiring Activists to Make a Bigger Difference appeared first on YEA Camp.

This past summer I had the opportunity to enjoy one of the best experiences of my life. I attended YEA Camp, a camp for social change. The camp trains young people like myself to be more effective activists and help change the world for the better. But even though I read every detail of information posted on the website, I had no idea what I was getting into.

When I got to camp, I was scared to death. I didn’t know anyone. But soon, one of the counselors explained what was happening and I went and made my own name tag, community bio, and appreciation poster (which is still hanging on my wall)!

 That afternoon, we played lots of name games and really got to know each other better. I got to meet the people I would be rooming with for the rest of camp, and even got my first taste of the amazing food at camp. But it wasn’t until the first workshop, Activism 101, that I really started to understand how life-changing this experience would be for me.

Throughout the week, I completed many different workshops that developed and refined my skills as an activist and advocate for social change. I also got to meet so many amazing, like-minded people. I had felt out of place at home, but at YEA Camp, I really felt like I belonged.

The supportive community throughout camp was probably one of the biggest confidence boosters of the whole experience. I finally understand that what I was trying to do was good, and that I should keep at it, no matter what other people thought, because I would always be supported by the people at YEA Camp.

 After the week was over, I packed up my things and headed home after an amazing graduation ceremony and some heartfelt goodbyes. On the car ride home, I went through my messages and caught up on everything I had missed. But it wasn’t until I arrived home and was in my room later that night that I really started to dig in deep on my activism.

Since camp, I’ve had the confidence and skills to take on leadership positions in my community and in organizations I am a part of. I’ve presented to many people that I never thought I’d be able to talk to. And I’ve spread my message more effectively than I ever thought I could.

So thank you, YEA Camp and Nora, for making me a better activist and person.

Rey Watson is a passionate environmental and animal rights activist form New Jersey who is actively working to help stop the climate crisis and save animals. She also enjoys reading and writing as well as spending time with animals.

If you’re like Rey and want to become an activist on a cause you care about, join us at YEA Camp! Don’t want to wait til summer? Good — we need more changemakers now! Check out our free ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World for help getting started or taking your change-making to new heights!

The post Finding My Voice at YEA Camp — a Summer Camp for Social Change appeared first on YEA Camp.

Happy Earth Day! Each year, as this time rolls around, people gather to celebrate the beauty of nature and our environment. It is the perfect time to learn more about the biggest environmental issues that we are facing and work on taking action!

I’ve gone vegan, learned about climate change, joined organizations to push for environmental action in politics, and worked on a school-wide campaign for stronger recycling. I’ve started making a difference in my own community, and now it’s your turn!

Being an environmental activist can often seem daunting, and the issues themselves seem hugely overwhelming, but once you get active it can be incredibly inspiring and even uplifting to see how many people really care!

Environmental activism is not just about protecting trees or animals. It is also about how people are impacted. We often take it for granted, but humans depend on our environment for clean air, water, and food, which we, of course, cannot live without. There is no way to separate the future of our planet from the future of humanity.

Communities that have been systematically disadvantaged by other injustices, like poverty and racism, are going to be disproportionately impacted by environmental issues like pollution and climate change, and we must organize for justice!

There is no shortage of opportunities to get involved and make a difference, but it can be hard to know where to start! Here’s a helpful list of 5 tips for getting more involved with environmental activism.

1. Go green in your daily life. Individual actions add up and it’s important to start with making changes yourself, like reducing your plastic use or eating plant-based. Be on the lookout for ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint, like driving less, buying less stuff, and making other eco-friendly swaps.

While we want to start with ourselves, we have to address large systemic environmental problems and the impacts of corporations and industries that have a far bigger impact.

2. Green your school or workplace. How could you help make your school or workplace more eco-friendly? Think of ways the school or office could help you and others take the daily actions above, like by having recycle bins, vegan options in the cafeteria, and no styrofoam or disposable trays. Anyplace you see something bad for the environment, think about a possible solution you could help bring about. You can organize with the support of friends or coworkers, and together tackle an important issue. It will take effort, but you will be more likely to see the change right in front of you and it is incredibly rewarding!  

3. Green your community. There are unique ways that environmental issues are going to impact your community, and it’s a lot easier to create a visible change on a local level than on a federal level. Maybe there’s a lake nearby that needs to be cleaned up, and you could do community service. Or you could advocate for improved recycling or composting if they are not available in your town. Are there eco-friendly businesses in your town that you can support or is there a business in your town that is really polluting and that you can try to have held accountable? Another option is to work to pass a local climate action plan.

4. Get involved in politics. Learn about your elected officials and your political candidates’ platforms on climate change and environmental policy. It’s critical to get legislation and laws enacted to enforce climate action and transitions to clean energy. The 2018 midterm elections coming up are a great opportunity to make sure we elect people to Congress who will represent our concerns and interests. Support and vote for candidates that will take action and not accept money from the fossil fuel industry! Check out YEA Camp’s guide to how youth too young to vote can impact an election.

5. Do what you love! When tackling a huge issue like this, it’s important to focus on the aspects that you are called to. There is a role for everyone in environmental activism, whether it is through science and innovating tech solutions or creating art and media to tell powerful stories and messages. There are always ways to link up what you love doing to what is important to you. While activism isn’t always fun, and we need to pursue those ways where we can be most effective even when it’s challenging, it is important that we find ways to enjoy taking action so that we can stay involved for the long run!

All life relies on us having a livable planet, and it is up to all of us to work to protect our environment. How will you make a difference this Earth Day?

Ananya Singh is a high school sophomore in New Jersey, where she studies visual and performing arts. She is an activist for environmental and social justice, and attended YEA Camp in New York 2015, Massachusetts 2017, and is currentlyYEA Camp’s Blog Manager.

If you’d like to get more involved in activism for the environment or another social justice issue, and would like some community support and training to help you on your change-making path, join us this summer at YEA Camp! We have sessions for youth 12-17 and our first ever YEA Camp for Adults!

The post This High School Sophomore Is Urging You to Get Serious On Earth Day appeared first on YEA Camp.

That’s our standard, incredible experience every summer, so it’s sometimes more fun to highlight the more rare or unique developments at each new summer of YEA Camp. As we already begin to prepare for next summer, here are a few of our favorite accomplishments from summer 2017.

1. Camper-Made Videos to Share the Unique Experience of YEA Camp
   This summer several campers came to YEA Camp prepared to document their experience on social media, while others got inspired to do so. So, before we further attempt the challenge of sharing about our YEA Camp summer, we’re going to let YEA Camper Noor Aldayeh do it for us in this video.

You can also check out videos by campers Emma and Natalie, as well as this awesome short video (including footage taken with drones!) by the fine folks at V for Veganism, who visited us at camp to learn more about and share our work. We were also thrilled to have a professional film crew with us all week at our California camp documenting our experience for a longer-term project they are working on. We’ll keep you posted on that!

2. More Former Campers On Staff Than Ever Before
This was our NINTH year of YEA Camp, which means that we now have a lot of campers who have gone through our program and are old enough to be on staff. We usually have a few former campers as counselors in training (CITs) each summer, but this year we had 7, many of whom have been standouts in our organization for years, having been on our Youth Advisory Board or been to multiple sessions of YEA Camp. It was an incredible experience to see these young leaders, some of whom we first met when they were 12 or 13, and whom we’ve stayed in close contact with over the years, now on staff training future YEA Campers.They’re all grown up! One of them, Andrew Puccetti, even wrote this awesome article for VegNews magazine about what he learned from his experience.

3. More Diversity and Scholarships Than Ever Before

These “appreciation posters” start off blank but by the end of camp are filled with nice notes campers and staff have written to one another.

It’s always important to us that YEA Camp participants represent a wide diversity of ethnicities, socioeconomic status, interests, geographic areas, and life experiences, which we can help facilitate through expanding our outreach as well as offering financial aid.

This year we had more campers than ever before, over 100 young leaders now better equipped to make a difference in their communities. We had more campers than ever before paying the full price — which, along with donations from our very generous supporters, provides funds for our financial aid — and, conversely, more on full or very significant scholarship.

This year, 13% of YEA Campers received a full scholarship, with another 14% paying less than 25% of our standard tuition cost.

We had campers from as far away as Australia, China, and across the US, campers from indigenous communities including one camper who led a workshop teaching Aztec dance and 2 staff who went to Standing Rock, campers who are first-generation Americans including those with families from Somalia and Mexico, campers who are Muslim and wore head scarves, campers who identify as trans or are considering their gender identity, and campers passionate about many different social issues from climate change to healthy relationships, police brutality to animal cruelty, LGBTQ equality to gun control, reproductive rights to eating disorders, and much more.

So many of these young people shared that because of — not in spite of — this diversity, they felt accepted and inspired by their experience meeting fellow activist-minded youth and staff.

4. More Returning Staff and Staff at Multiple Sessions Than Ever Before

We have such outstanding staff members at YEA Camp, and when we can have returning staff members and staff members working at multiple sessions, it makes everything run smoother and builds on past experience. We were thrilled to be able to retain such outstanding staff, and of our 31 staff members this summer, 18 of them had attended at least one previous YEA Camp, and 5 staff attended all 3 sessions that we held this summer!

5. Stronger Post-Camp Communication and Support

Thanks to technology and our campers’ own innovation and commitment, this year campers have chosen to use new tech platforms to stay in touch with everyone from camp, to share activist accomplishments, ask for help, and reach out when they miss one another or need support. Using Discord and GroupMe, YEA Campers and staff have sent each other thousands of group messages to provide ongoing connection in the time since camp ended.

Our monthly all-camp support video calls have also been a great success. With more than 20 campers or staff on our calls, campers have been able to ask and answer one another’s questions regarding fundraising tips, their school clubs, what to say to “haters,” juggling activism with their busy schedules, and much more.

This summer was a huge success and inspiration for us to keep expanding our programs to support activists in making our world a better place.

This was also the first summer of YEA Camp where we had a president that was universally hated by campers and staff, and the current political and accompanying social climate and divisiveness make YEA Camp even more needed.

We are thrilled to have some big things in the works for YEA Camp 2018, which we will be sharing very soon.

Until then, we are so grateful for all of our campers, parents, staff, volunteers, and donors for enabling YEA Camp to continue our programs to empower people to do activism and bring about a better world.

The post Another Amazing YEA Camp Summer Brings Inspiration and Firsts appeared first on YEA Camp.