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.

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.

When we at YEA Camp recognized that we would need to cancel our in-person camps, we knew we weren’t going to sit this summer out.

We wanted to create something new to support so many young people wanting help to make a bigger difference on issues related to racism and police brutality, as well as many other issues our society has been struggling with long before we ever heard the word “coronavirus.”

YEA Campers are passionate about opposing racism as well as other social justice issues like climate change, LGBTQ equality, animal rights, mental health, gun control, poverty, and other pressing needs — and we were thrilled to be able to reimagine what we do at our in-person camps to create Virtual YEA Camp to help more than 100 teens and tweens on their change-making path.

Differences Between In-Person and Virtual YEA Camp

After more than a decade of running in-person camps, our planning team spent 2 months developing our approach to bring the best of what we do into a totally different virtual format.

YEA Camp’s curriculum is based on building knowledge about problems and solutions, skills to take effective action, confidence to believe in yourself and get out of your comfort zone, and community to know you’re supported and not alone. And that’s just what we did at Virtual YEA Camp.

While of course we love being together in-person, and there are certain things built into our regular curriculum that are tougher or impossible to do virtually, we found ways to incorporate new activities into our online program, including many we’re not normally able to do in person.

We had 4 sessions of Virtual YEA Camp. The first, World Changing 101, introduced basic ideas of privilege, 3 levels of activism we can do (individual, community, and institutional), and basics of campaigns and advocacy. In the second session, Exploring the Issues, we focused each day on a different social justice issue to learn more about it and the advocacy we can do to make a difference on that cause. Our third week, Amplifying Your Message, was all about skill-building, and we focused on improving communications skills, taught a workshop on campaign planning, and introduced campers to the basics of political organizing, grassroots advocacy, and social media activism. And finally week 4 was called Careers for Changemakers — a unique look at ways to envision a lifetime of making a difference.

We did virtual visits to 3 different animal sanctuaries, and we were able to have guest speakers that would never normally be able to make the trip to join us in the woods. We had incredible changemakers training our campers in how to make a difference, from social justice journalist Rose Aguilar of “Your Call Radio” to teen activist and youngest-ever TEDx speaker Genesis Butler; from the Institute for Humane Education’s founder Zoe Weil to Plant-Based on a Budget’s Toni Okamoto; President of the San Mateo County, CA, Board of Supervisors Warren Slocum, founder of the Embody Love Movement, Dr. Melody Moore; and so many more.

We had guest speakers who were educators, social entrepreneurs, therapists, chefs, attorneys, social workers, journalists, political organizers, and politicians — all speaking about their career paths, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And so many of our speakers were past campers, like Ananya Singh, Sarah Goody, and Elyanna Calle sharing about their environmental activism; Noor Aldayeh sharing about her expertise in social media, Ana Little-Sana advised campers on getting involved in politics, and Julia Clark talked us through the behind-the-scenes of how she successfully led a campaign to get the name of her high school changed from that of a confederate general to Justice High School(!).

Our starstruck campers loved our celebrity guests Daniella Monet and Daisy Fuentes, who both spoke about how they’ve used their platforms to make a bigger difference on causes they care about, how they deal with haters, and building up the courage to find your voice. We had virtual visits to animal sanctuaries; dance and yoga classes led by celebrity teachers; arts activism using Canva to create social media-ready images to share right away; and vegan cooking classes, including one with celebrity chef Eddie Garza, who taught us to make tamales — so good! And we had incredible yoga and dance instructor and choreographer SuzE Q leading classes each week.

All of Our Amazing Staff Members Were All Former Campers!

We also had incredible staff members advising and supporting our campers all the way through. Each one of our counselors — Aine Pierre, Emma Kossoy, Jocelynn Dow, Julia Clark, Liam Davis-Bosch, and Maya Diaz-Villalta — was a former camper themselves and so knew exactly the positive, inspiring, and fun vibe of our in-person camps to help replicate this experience virtually. Advisors Sarah and Miranda hugely helped campers with their CTW challenges and action plans, and Chef Miranda taught us her amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe. Assistant director Andina Aste-Nieto joined us for her 7th(!) summer with us, and her presence makes every YEA Camp better.

Each member of our staff was chosen in part because they have also done a huge amount of activism themselves, especially for their young age. All recent high school graduates or college students, members of our amazing staff have lobbied their Congressional officials, started and run community organizations, launched successful campaigns and initiatives at their schools, and much more.

Leveraging Virtual Format to Make a Bigger Difference

One unique difference between Virtual YEA Camp and our in-person camp was access to technology. Normally we have spotty wifi, a no cell phone policy to keep everyone present and free of distractions, and no computer lab or structure for everyone to have access to the Internet.

As we developed our plans for our Virtual YEA Camp and recognized we’d need to cut some things, we also realized that on the bright side we could incorporate technology in totally new ways that we never have in person to enable campers to work on activist projects together.

Matched with a staff member who has worked on their cause, and in a small group of other campers with the same Issue of Importance (IOI), each camper worked on CTW (Change the World!) projects each week.

Each small group was given assignments for the week to create a social media project to share resources or inspiration for why and how others should get involved in their cause. From reflecting on the Pillars of Support (or underlying reasons) that their issue exists to developing talking points and compiling lists of things people can do to make a difference, campers educated themselves and others about their cause. Their What Is Your Why projects also can be a source of ongoing inspiration to stay present to their passion over the long haul.

They also set group goals to do activism together each week, and then got into action throughout the day, having their small group and counselor for support along the way. Campers identified campaigns they cared about and the decision-makers who needed to be persuaded and made at least 5,533 advocacy calls, emails, and texts for their causes! Whether they called federal or local legislators, multinational corporations, or small businesses in their area, campers made their views heard — requesting charges brought against killer cops, support for eco-friendly policies, vegan food options, and other changes to make our world better.

While many sent texts and emails, we especially encouraged every camper to get over their fear of making calls. Doing role plays and practice calls together,  campers got more comfortable and also discovered that most calls are really short and simple. A one-sentence “Hi, I’m calling to ask you to …” is usually met with a respectful “OK, thanks for calling. I’ll pass that along. Have a nice day” — not arguments about how much a program will cost or questions about specifics they might not have the answers to on the tip of their tongue.

Several campers who got over their fears about making their first call ended up making over 30 calls each in just a few days and plan to include this approach in their future advocacy!

Campers also registered or reminded people in their lives and community to vote in this important upcoming election. In our workshop on politics, we talked about how there are so many ways you can be involved in an election, even if you’re too young to vote.

And campers fundraised! Each small group agreed on an organization working on their IOI and set an ambitious fundraising goal for the week. Some campers were terrified to reach out to people in their life to ask for donations and were inspired to see people they didn’t expect support their fundraisers!

Everybody dealt with some level of rejection or disappointment or anxiety of doing or saying the wrong thing, which are all important parts of activism that we need to get comfortable experiencing and overcoming. Hearing “no” can be really hard, but if we aren’t willing to hear “no” about the causes we believe in and the big changes we want to make, we likely won’t be hearing “yes” either.

In addition to all these group goals and challenges, every camper developed an action plan for how they want to make a difference once camp ended. They chose a cause to focus on, a goal and proposed date to achieve it by, and developed action steps to take along the way.

Many campers, especially those who were with us for multiple sessions, got to work on their plans too.

We know of at least 3 activist-related podcasts launched during YEA Camp, this online petition (please sign!) our amazing camper Rachel created to request climate change education in NY public schools, new social media platforms to raise awareness on different causes, arts activism created to raise awareness, people who went to their first-ever protest, and so much more that we don’t even know about and that will be developed and blossoming in the weeks, months, and years to come.

We couldn’t be more proud of our campers’ accomplishments this summer, and it was such a joy to see their own pride as well!

We’ll remember campers telling us “I FINALLY MADE A CALL!” and having them share about what it took for them to develop the courage to pick up the phone, push the buttons and make the call.

We’ll remember campers’ enthusiasm and pride when they saw people contributing to the online fundraiser their group had created just the day before.

We’ll remember so many campers starting to really see for themselves that they can make a difference, that all of our actions add up, that they are not alone and have a community of people now who support them and care as much as they do about making our world a better place.

And ultimately we’ll remember that we are resilient. That it wasn’t that long ago that YEA Camp was canceled and we had no idea what we might do instead. That we were googling “virtual camp” to find out what that even was — and to then imagine and create our version of what it could be.

That’s what activists do.

And it wouldn’t have been possible without so many of you. Our campers for caring so much and YEA Camp parents for trusting us with your kids. Our incredibly committed staff who made this whole new innovative program possible. Our brilliant speakers who so much of their wisdom and expertise with us. Volunteers involved in so many levels of our work. Our donors who make all of our work possible. And to many cheerleaders who appreciate and share our work. So many of you have been supporting us on this path and helped make this amazing summer possible for us. We are so grateful for all of you!

And now we want to build on our successes from this summer and continue to reinvent what is possible for our work and organization.

Want to know what’s next for YEA Camp? So do we! We have so many ideas and would love your help deciding and prioritizing. Fill out this survey to let us know what you think! And follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep track of what we’ve got planned next.

The post Youth Activists Make a Big Impact at Virtual YEA Camp appeared first on YEA Camp.

Well, with our first session of Virtual YEA Camp, we found out! And we couldn’t be more proud or excited for what we accomplished.

First, our campers did so much activism!

In less than 5 days, they raised (that we know of) $3,696 for the organizations of their choice (including Charlie’s Acres, Color of Change, Equal Justice Initiative, Greenpeace, Lambda Legal, and the San Francisco SPCA), registered or reminded 1, 294 people to vote absentee (by mail), and made 81 advocacy phone calls to decision makers! Incredible!

In a supportive community, working with other youth passionate about the same cause and with the mentorship of one of our amazing staff members — all of whom are past YEA Campers who have gone on to do tons of really impressive activism themselves — our campers achieved things they never expected they could, and they did it in such a short period of time!

We also did so many fun activities, from a yoga class and a vegan cooking class to a scavenger hunt and a pet cuteness contest! (It was an all-way tie!)

We got such great feedback from campers we thought we’d share a few of their comments from our anonymous evaluations.

It’s not too late to sign up!

Do you know any youth ages 10-17 who want to make our world a better place?

We still have 3 weeks left of YEA Camp sessions with amazing guest speakers, super fun activities, and lots of activism and inspiration making a difference on the cause of your choice.

Our incredible staff will be here supporting you along the way!

The upcoming sessions are:

• Exploring the Issues – July 20-24
• Amplifying Your Message – July 27-31
• Careers for Changemakers – August 3-7

In this upcoming week 2, some things we’re really looking forward to:

• amazing guest speakers like Genesis Butler, Julia Clark, and Zoe Weil
• a vegan Mexican cuisine cooking class with celebrity vegan chef Eddie Garza
• a dance class with a celebrity guest dance teacher and choreographer, SuzE Q
• a virtual visit to Farm Sanctuary to spend time with the animals

It’s not too late to register, so if you’re 10-17 years old and want to make our world a better place, join us for a week (or 2 or 3) that will help you make a difference for the future!

Details and get registered at www.YEACamp.org.

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