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.

Hello! My name is Phoenix Turner, and I am 12 years old. I went to the first ever virtual winter YEA Camp. 

My IOI was anti-racism. Through camp I was taught so many ways to be a better activist and changemaker. The workshops this week were not just factual, but also fun. This camp has been a great experience I could never forget (nor would I want to). I have made great friends at camp that I hope to stay in touch with. 

Not only am I very passionate about anti-racism, but I am passionate about LGBTQ+ equality, climate change, mental health and animal rights, with many more in between. I have been wanting to go vegetarian for a long time, but I haven’t had the courage to ask my parents to let me. Through camp and making friends who are already vegan and vegetarian, I gained the courage to ask my parents, and they said yes! 

YEA Camp has made such a big impact on my life, and it will for other young activists too. There are so many things to learn at camp to not only help you be a better activist but to help you through life. I would 10/10 recommend YEA Camp to changemakers. If you want to make a change in your world and community, come to YEA camp!

We absolutely loved having Phoenix and all of our amazing campers at our first-ever winter session of YEA Camp!  They’ve given us so much inspiration and lots of ideas for the future. We’re going to be developing more virtual programming, and we’d love to hear from you if you’re interested! You can reach out to us in the chat box or through our Contact page.  Follow us on Instagram or Facebook for all our latest updates!

The post Virtual Winter Camp Officially Gets a 10 Out of 10 Recommendation for Changemakers appeared first on YEA Camp.

Following the success of our first-ever virtual sessions this summer, we are launching our first ever Winter YEA Camp!

One of the things that made our summer sessions so amazing was our incredible staff — all of whom were former YEA Campers and are now grown up with years of activism experience making a difference on causes like climate change, racism, LGBTQ equality, animal rights, mental health, and more.

We’re thrilled that most of our all-star team from this summer — Aine, Julia, Liam, and Maya — are able to join us again this summer, and we have added a few fresh faces, too — Ananya and Elyanna, amazing activists who were both speakers at the virtual camp this summer! These inspiring humans have over a decade of combined YEA Camp experience and have all done some incredible activism.

Throughout the week at YEA Camp, you’ll be learning about different types of activism, getting ideas for things you’ll want to do for the cause that’s most important to you (what we call your Issue of Importance, or IOI), and working on an activist project or two yourself! These are the staff members who will be your role models, advisors, cheer leaders, and mentors to help you put your passion into action — and that’s pretty special.

So without further ado, here is the YEA Camp Dream Team for Winter 2020.

Nora Kramer, YEA Camp Founder and Director (2009-present)

Current Issues Of Importance (IOIs): Factory farming, political accountability, mass incarceration

Just some accomplishments: Started and directed or co-directed 30 sessions of YEA Camp! Successfully coordinated grassroots volunteer efforts to qualify ballot initiatives in 2 states to outlaw some of the cruelest, unsustainable, and unsanitary practices on factory farms; passed out tens of thousands of leaflets; gathered several thousand signatures, including most recently for a measure that helped to stop a new prison from being built in Los Angeles. Wrote The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World.

Reason for being on staff: “Activism can be really challenging, especially when you’re just getting started and not as confident. I love being able to help people on their path to make the biggest difference they can, and I love to surround myself with amazing changemakers who inspire me.”

Elyanna Calle, Counselor (YEA Camper: 2018)

IOIs: Animal rights and climate change

Just some accomplishments: Elyanna is a student at the University of Texas studying journalism. She attended camp back in 2018 with her IOI being animal rights. Since then she’s participated in many animal rights groups and organized protests and events. After that, she got involved in climate justice and organized two climate strikes in Olympia,WA — all while still in high school.

Reason for being on staff: “Since the day I left YEA camp I wanted to come back as a staff member. I learned such invaluable lessons and I want to give back to the program!”

Julia Clark, Counselor (YEA Camper: 2016, Virtual Counselor: Summer 2020) 

IOI: Racial Justice

Just some accomplishments: In high school, successfully led a student organization called Students for Change that removed confederate names and symbols from her public high school. Currently an outspoken activist, a local organizer in the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Vice President of UNC Black Student Movement, which is the largest cultural organization on UNCs campus.

Reason for being on staff: “To amplify the voices of young activists and use the knowledge I have gained to help others.”

Liam Davis-Bosch, Counselor (YEA Camper: 2015, 2016; YEA Camp Counselor: 2017, 2018; Virtual Counselor: Summer 2020)

IOIs: Mental Health and LGBTQ+ Rights, Climate Change, Education

Just some accomplishments: Former YEA Camper turned staff member that is currently studying neuroscience, psychology, and education at Pitzer College. From a young age, Liam has been involved with humane education and animal rights causes, which then sparked an interest in climate justice. Investigating these intersections led them to work with the Alliance for Climate Education working on youth education and empowerment and advocating for green energy legislation in New York State. More recently, Liam’s focus has been on alternative and accessible education through working as a youth ambassador with HundrED and conducting research on trauma-informed teaching and arts education. Created a resource guide for teaching with sensitivity to queer folx and those affected by mental illness.

Reason for being on staff: “I know from both being a young person and working with young people how truly powerful we are. There is a yearning for knowledge and a passion and drive that is unstoppable. When this is paired with education and support, I know that change can be made in this world. As someone that has benefited so much from this program I want the change to give that same experience to others.”

Maya Diaz-Villalta, Counselor (YEA Camper: 2017; Virtual Counselor: 2020)

IOI(s): Indigenous Rights and LGBTQ+ Rights

Just some accomplishments: Maya Diaz-Villalta (they/them) is a third year at Saint Mary’s College of California pursuing their degree in Anthropology and Dance. They have been an Indigenous Aztec dancer for fifteen years and are involved in various Indigenous communities. Maya is the founder of an organization called Naturalmente Indigena which serves Native youth to connect them to their culture, mother earth, and encourage higher education.  Maya serves and advocates for Indigenous, immigrant, and queer communities.  

Reason for being on staff: “To listen to young people’s ideas and help manifest their goals.”

Aine Pierre, Operations Manager (YEA Camper: 2015, 2016, 2018; Virtual Counselor: Summer 2020)

IOIs: LGBTQ+ Rights and Student Press Rights

Just some accomplishments: Headed the student advocacy chapter of the Garden State Scholastic Press Association for three years, changed the recycling system in her school district, and has written extensively on racial issues, immigration, mental health, etc. for her school newspaper, reaching a wide audience. Also served on the board of a horse sanctuary. Is now currently the Assistant News Editor for the student newspaper of Wake Forest, where she is studying political science and ancient civilizations.

Reason for being on staff: “YEA Camp was a transformative experience for me, allowing me to become more confident in myself, learn more about the issues of the world and how to make them a better place, and in building a community of changemakers that have become my lifelong friends. I want to give other kids the opportunity to experience that.”

Ananya Singh, Counselor (YEA Camper: 2015, 2017 YEA staff member 2018, 2019)

IOIs: Climate justice, social movements, education

Just some accomplishments: Longtime youth climate justice activist. Started Youth United Making An Impact, was a lead activist with Greenpeace, a Climate Justice League Fellow with Sierra Club, former CEO of Greening Forward, youth advisory council member and plenary speaker for National Youth Leadership Council. Currently a student at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine! I have an interdisciplinary major in human ecology

Reason for being on staff:  I love YEA Camp so much because it truly changed my life and shaped me into the activist I am today, and it’s such a special experience and community! Being able to give that experience to other people and help them discover their activist passions has been incredible!

Want to learn from these incredible changemakers? It’s not too late to register today for Winter YEA Camp. For more information about our amazing new winter program, head to yeacamp.org!

The post Meet Our Staff at Virtual YEA Camp’s Upcoming Winter Session 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.

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.

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