teen vegan Archives - YEA Camp

YEA Camp Celebrates 10 Years of Tofurky Sandwiches

YEA Camp — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 13:11:02 +0000

As a summer camp for social change, we at YEA Camp recognize the huge impact of our food choices on the planet, other species, workers, global food access, and our own health.

While we have always had many campers and staff who aren’t vegetarian or vegan, an important feature of YEA Camp since the beginning is putting our food where our mouth is, so to speak, by serving vegan food.

It’s a simple but important choice for us to model living in a way that’s more sustainable, compassionate, and healthy, and a great example of how activists can make a difference through our daily actions in addition to more complex campaigns.

And our food is delicious! We make sure our food is accessible so that even campers and staff who aren’t accustomed to eating vegan love it! Changing the world takes a lot of brain power, so, we need to keep our campers well-fueled with the most amazing vegan food.

It wouldn’t be YEA Camp without Tofurky!

Feeding our campers the best vegan food in the world is possible thanks to the generous support from our sponsors who help make YEA Camp a reality.

One of our biggest supporters throughout the past 10 years of YEA Camp has been Tofurky, a groundbreaking company that has been pioneering delicious plant-based meat alternatives since way before it was cool — they started in 1980!

Tofurky’s impact on getting vegan products into mainstream supermarkets has also been foundational, and so many new plant-based companies benefit from this work.

Tofurky is a family-owned and values-based company, as exhibited not only through its plant-based products but also by its incredible eco-friendly building and contributions to so many causes and organizations working to make the world a better place — including YEA Camp!

Proof you’ve been to YEA Camp! A yarn bracelet on one wrist and a Tofurky tattoo on the other!

Throughout our entire 10 years, Tofurky has loyally supported our camp, generously donating their delicious products at each and every one of our 29 sessions, helping us to show off to YEA Campers and staff just how tasty vegan food is.

As we reflect back on our 10 years of YEA Camp, one of the things every session has had in common was Tofurky! We have loved showcasing Tofurky foods, which our campers and staff love, and Tofurky tattoos have always been a big hit as well!

We were grateful to have the opportunity to sit down with Rachel Perman, Tofurky’s Director of Charitable Giving, to learn a bit more about their work and why doing business better makes the world a little nicer for all of us.

For those who don’t know, what is Tofurky?

Tofurky is an engine for global change. Our decisions and brand intentions are driven by how we can make the world more delicious, using plant-based ingredients.

Tell me about Tofurky’s decision to become a B-Corp and what that means.

B-Corps are social purposes companies, like fair-trade, for the whole business. They are for-profit companies that operate with many non-profit intentions, working to set a good example for how businesses can succeed in healthy ways for their communities and planet.

Tofurky has really always operated this way, before the practice was recognized in the media. So when B-Corp and its certifying body incorporated, it seemed like a natural fit to be audited for the certification and proudly display it in our corporate communication.

Tell me more about the “A Better World” campaign.

Part of being a B-Corp is being better for the environment. We exhibit this in many ways, from operating out of a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility built to a LEED spec, recycling our food scraps, and producing plant-based foods that reduce our society’s dependence on animal agriculture. If these benefits are wrapped up in the purchase of food that is first and foremost, delicious, we are fulfilling our core tenants.

Why is it so important to advocate for animal and environmental rights?

We operate in a world where CEO Activism is seeing major inroads to editing public policy and perception. Our nation’s business leadership has real power to set intentions with a population hungry for change. If we reduce or eliminate animal products from our diet, we increase animal welfare and environmental sustainability.

So much research is coalescing right now to substantiate plant-based lifestyles; we’re not alone in our vision. Our brand was one of the first to market almost 40 years ago and has evolved our mission to be first to political action, today.

Why has Tofurky been such a strong supporter of YEA Camp?

Supporting an advocacy group that works to teach, inspire, and empower young (and now also adult) activists seems like a no-brainer!

We are happy to support this important work, and it’s also important to us to make vegan eating tasty and accessible and for activists to feel supported by us. We value your advocacy!

Aww shucks! (We’re blushing.)

What would you say to someone who is trying to go vegan or eat a more plant-based diet but isn’t sure where to begin?

Start small. Pick one item that could be replaced in your regular eating habits. Or pick one meal a week to dedicate to plant-based foods. Tell people your intentions; you’ll find many who are also bringing more plant-based products into their lifestyle and still others who are curious to join. Give that one change 30 days until it becomes an easy habit. Repeat.

Where can people find you?

We’re carried in virtually every store in the nation. Walmart, Target, Publix, Safeway, Kroger and most natural markets. Depending on where you live, you can also buy our products on Amazon Fresh. Yum!

Most importantly, what’s your favorite Tofurky meal?

Tofurky’s Pizza Grilled Cheese OMG!

Oooh – tough one. This pizza grilled cheese sandwich is pretty amazing. A crowd pleaser, for sure!

Wow! Thank you so much, Rachel and Tofurky!

—

We are so grateful to Rachel and team Tofurky for taking the time to talk with us (and for giving us dinner plans – hello pizza grilled cheese sandwich)!

And from everyone here at YEA Camp, thank you so much to Tofurky for your generous support, for your delicious food, and for everything you do to put animals and our planet first!

If you want to try delicious Tofurky products, go out and buy them just about anywhere — or come join us at YEA Camp and try them this summer! Our amazing food is just one of the reasons to attend! If you’re concerned about the state of the world, YEA Camp was designed to help you take your change-making to new heights — and to have the time of your life learning how.

Learn about or sign up for YEA Camp’s teen camp and YEA Camp for Adults here.

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YEA Camper Activist Spotlight: Claire Tamburello’s Activism Matures As She Does

YEA Camp — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 17:00:09 +0000

Claire and a rescue turkey at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

Former YEA Camper Claire Tamburello has been impressing us since the beginning. As soon as she got home from camp 3 years ago, we saw her share one story after another on social media about all the activism she was doing at school and in her community. We were so blown away that we invited Claire to be our first ever Counselor In Training who was under 18 (she did an amazing job mentoring our youngest girls) — she just had so much experience, it made more sense to have her on staff!

It’s been an inspiration to see her continue to do activism now that she’s in college, and to see her change-making evolve as she matures. We were thrilled that she agreed to share more about her experience with all of us!

YEA Camp: Hey, Claire! Tell us about the activism you’ve done and what you’re working on now!

Claire: In the past, I’ve focused mainly on animal rights issues. I’ve led a circus protest in my Michigan hometown that brought so much attention that the Kelly Miller Circus was asked not to return to my town. I have participated in and led many demonstrations and protests against factory farming, fur stores, SeaWorld, and other establishments that exploit animals. I have also gone to the state capital to advocate against a wolf hunt in the Upper Peninsula when the issue was being voted on.

Since this interview, Claire participated and spoke at a major march on her college campus about gun control

In 2016, I was an intern for The Humane League and informed classes and individuals at my college about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle. Currently, I’ve shifted gears and am helping to organize a student walkout and rally on my campus to call on lawmakers to reform gun laws in light of recent mass shootings in the United States.

YEA: That’s amazing! How did you get involved with activism and what you’re currently working on?

CT: My volunteer opportunities mainly come through my university’s environmental clubs.

YEA: What challenges have you faced as an activist and how have you dealt with them?

CT: Time and time again, I’ve been told that I can’t make a difference, that I’m just one person and nothing will change because of me. That’s hard to hear but easy to ignore. Simply reminding myself that change is made through many small steps rather than one big one is very encouraging.

YEA: What advice do you have for new activists just getting involved?

CT: Get connected! The best way to stay encouraged is to have a go-to group of like-minded individuals who have been through the struggles you face as a new activist.

Claire with YEA Campers at a New York session where she was a CIT

YEA: How did YEA Camp help you in your activism, if it did?

CT: YEA Camp absolutely helped me with my activism. It gave me many tools to make me a better activist. For example, YEA Camp includes a workshop on leafleting which includes amazing tips on how to effectively spread your message.

YEA: What activist goals do you have in the future?

CT: I am very passionate about reforming gun laws. As previously stated, I’m helping organize a gun reform walkout and rally on my campus. I hope to have a real impact on the students at my college and inspire them to want to make change as much as I do.

YEA: You’re awesome! Anything else you want to tell us?

CT: Everyone who is able to should attend YEA Camp! It has made me a more effective activist and an all-around more considerate person.

YEA: Awww! So glad to hear that!

Claire is 19 years old and a sophomore at the University of Tampa. She was a camper at the 2014 Massachusetts session and a CIT at the New York 2015 and 2016 sessions.

If you or someone you know can relate to Claire and wants to make a bigger difference in the world, come to YEA Camp this summer! We now have a camp for adults too!

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YEA Camper Activist Profile: Phoebe Collver-Freeland, the “Coolest Vegan Alive”

YEA Camp — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 21:10:50 +0000

Phoebe poses with a chicken at her microsanctuary.

Phoebe Collver-Freeland has been an incredible advocate for animals since she was 11 years old. When we first met Phoebe, when she attended YEA Camp for the first time in 2013, she was very quiet, but every day of camp she wore a t-shirt that had a powerful message about compassion for animals.

Throughout the week, we saw her open up more, and in the years since then, as well as when she attended YEA Camp again in 2015, we have been blown away by the amount of activism she has done. In fact, PETA2 named her the “Coolest Vegan Alive“(!!) when she was just 16! She also recently was given a grant by The Pollination Project to expand her microsanctuary!

Phoebe agreed to let us interview her to learn more about her activism efforts.

1. Tell us about the activism you’ve been doing.

I have a microsanctuary, called Phoebe’s Friends Microsanctuary, which is a small sanctuary for rescued farmed animals. I currently care for three pigs who were rescued from a laboratory, two goats whose guardians were unable to care for them, and chickens who were raised by a cockfighting breeder and saved from slaughter. We host groups of children and teach them compassion for all animals. I also do outreach, art activism, and volunteer work with various organizations, such as serving on peta2‘s Youth Advisory Board for three years.

2. How did you get involved with activism and what you’re currently working on?

I first got involved with activism when I got a PETA Kids book when I was 11. Early on I mostly wrote letters to companies who exploit animals and talked to my friends about going vegan. My family had already been caring for goats and chickens when we found out about the Microsanctuary Movement in 2015. We began identifying as a microsanctuary, and since then we have been rescuing more animals and educating children about them.

Being a public animal rights activist is a crucial aspect to the movement.

3. What challenges have you faced as an activist and how have you dealt with them?

My biggest challenge is being very shy. During my first few years of activism I wasn’t very comfortable talking to people. Instead of being too afraid to do anything, I just found something I did feel comfortable doing: art activism and animal care. After a while I decided that I wanted to be able to do outreach, so I knew I would have to start trying. I volunteered with peta2 at Warped Tour for the first time in 2015. Going up to people and talking to them about SeaWorld was so scary. I would freeze up and forget my talking points. It started to get a little easier though, and now I’ve volunteered with them for the past three summers. Each time it got easier and more fun.

4. What advice do you have for new activists just getting involved?

Find an organization and/or a mentor to work with. If you don’t feel comfortable with a certain type of activism, find what works for you. Educate yourself on your issue and be prepared to answer people’s questions.

5. How did YEA Camp help you in your activism, if it did?

YEA Camp improved my confidence and communication skills. I learned valuable skills on how to talk to people, and practicing and role-playing outreach and other types of activism was really helpful for me.

Rescue pigs are the best cuddle buddies.

6. What activist goals do you have in the future?

When I transfer to a four-year university, I want to apply to be a peta2 Campus Rep. After that, I think I either want to either work at a full-scale farm sanctuary or run my own.

Phoebe Collver-Freeland is an eighteen-year-old animal rights advocate and YEA Camp Alumni from Fremont, California, who attended YEA Camp Oregon in 2013 and YEA Camp New York in 2015.

If you want to be like Phoebe when you grow up, or know someone who does, come to YEA Camp this summer! We even have a YEA Camp for Adults!

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How I Learned to Give a Cluck

YEA Camp — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 23:06:37 +0000

By Lizzy Ellis

YEA Camper Lizzy Ellis’s rescued chickens inspired her to become an activist for animals.

A gentle fall breeze cascades down my driveway. As I get off the bus, Lightning the chicken waddles over, scattering the leaves as she goes. I lean down and she hops right up onto my shoulder. Together, we walk up the driveway in the dappled sunlight.

But my journey with Lightning began long before that serene afternoon. It began one day several years ago when my dad arrived with a box. When my sisters and I peered inside, we couldn’t believe our eyes. In the box were six baby chicks, stretching and strutting like feathery micro-dinosaurs. My dad gave us the supplies, but it was up to us to take care of the chickens. Somehow we figured it out. We fed them, we bathed them, we made special tiny pancakes for them, we even carried them around the house much to my mom’s dismay. The chicks were sweet little puffballs that quickly grew into gangly teenager chickens. We did it. We raised them right. And to us, the chickens were friends, not food.

But one chicken was special. That was Lightning. Lightning, a beautiful silver gray chicken, needed me more than the rest. Every time I poked my head outside she would come running. If I leaned down, she’d fly up to my shoulder. On the weekends, I’d bring her Cheerios. She’d eat them from my hand and snuggle up on my lap. It was like we had our own language. If she needed something from me, I somehow understood. Lightning was my constant.

Our time together was too short, but Lightning taught me something about animals that has changed my life. Chickens, and all other animals, feel love toward each other and toward humans. They feel sorrow when another member of their flock is lost. They develop strong emotional bonds. And they feel pain. It was then that I knew I had to make a change.

From then on, I saw how impossible it would be to justify eating animals. I saw how animals are more like us than we want to believe. Not many people feel the same way. When I talked about it at school, even with friends who had chickens, people still didn’t see the connection. After Lightning died, I really needed someone to understand. Finally, through a stroke of luck, I found the YEA Camp. There I met people who shared my perspective on animals and the lives they should be allowed to live.

Lightning taught me that all animals are exceptional. YEA Camp taught me that we can all make a difference.

Lizzy Ellis attended YEA Camp in 2017. She’s a 14 year-old chicken champion and friend to animals everywhere.

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Life-Changing Summer Camp Serves Life-Saving Food

Nora Kramer — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 20:13:12 +0000

by Lauren Scheller-Wolf

Hey everyone! I’m Lauren and I attended Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp this past summer at the beautiful Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, a sanctuary for rescued farm animals in High Falls, New York. It was an awesome experience. I learned SO much and I met so many new people while also having fun!

Lauren at Farm Sanctuary, a rescue sanctuary for farm animals in Watkins Glen, New York

A great thing about YEA Camp is that it’s 100 percent vegan, so no meat or animal products like eggs or milk are used in any of its food. This is awesome for a lifelong vegan-since-birth teen like me because, while it’s getting easier to be vegan every day, it’s still nice to go somewhere and be surrounded by like-minded people!

I know what you’re thinking. If you’re vegan, you’re probably thinking something like, “That sounds amazing! I want to go to YEA Camp!” and if you’re not vegan, you might be thinking, “No meat or eggs or dairy? That sounds horrible!” or maybe, “I don’t get it, why would they have that policy?”

Well, first let me explain a little bit about why I’m vegan.

My parents went vegan before I was born. I’ve never eaten meat or animal products and I never will; once you’ve held a baby goat, or petted a cow and realized how much they remind you of your dogs (except bigger), there’s really no going back.

How could I eat something that has been killed just so I could eat it?

Fawn, a young cow who lives at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, where YEA Camp NY 2015 was held.

I go to the grocery store and look at the meat department and see peaceful, sentient beings whose only fault was being born a cow or a pig or a chicken. I couldn’t eat someone who spent his brief life crammed in a tiny cage with no space to move. Someone who has never seen the sun or felt the grass under his feet. Someone who has seen her babies get ripped away from her year after year. Someone who has spent his or her entire existence listening to the screams of creatures being slaughtered.

And, even if the animals were raised “humanely,” death is still death.

That’s why I’m vegan. Now, why YEA Camp is vegan…

Here’s what YEA Camp’s website says on the subject:

“YEA Camp is all about changing the world, and we feel it would be hypocritical if we served food similar to the standard American diet, which has led to skyrocketing rates of diet-related diseases, ecological disasters, and cruelty to animals, among other injustices of modern agriculture.

Lauren hanging with the turkeys at YEA Camp New York, August 2015

YEA takes pride in every meal at camp being delicious, as well as modeling the sustainable, ethical, and compassionate world we look to create. We are being the change we wish to see at every meal… All of the food at YEA Camp is vegan, fair-trade, local and organic to the greatest extent possible… It is also delicious! This is in alignment with our intention to practice living in the most sustainable and compassionate ways possible during our brief time at camp.”

I can’t say it any better than that! And the food is delicious!

Ok, so maybe you’re still concerned. (“Are we going to eat nothing but broccoli? What is there left to eat?”) If so, check out this video. Actually, you should check it out even if you weren’t thinking that. It’s pretty awesome.

You won’t notice the lack of meat, I promise! And if you’re still not convinced, check out YEA Camp’s page on its website, which gives examples of what it serves its campers every day.

PS: If you’d like to learn more about veganism, please check out the following links:

-Farm Sanctuary is a sanctuary for rescued farm animals. It also has a lot of info on veganism: http://www.farmsanctuary.org/

– ChooseVeg has a lot of information on many different aspects of veganism: http://www.chooseveg.com/

Want to learn more about YEA Camp, which helped inspire Lauren’s passion for animal rights activism? Check out YEA Camp.org to see if it’s right a young change-maker you know!

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