Goal of Day 1: Everyone is welcomed, safe, known, and having fun
Everyone is welcomed, safe, known, and having fun
By the end of Day 1, we fulfilled YEA Camp Director Nora's seemingly ambitious goal of everyone knowing everyone else's name! It was inspiring to see the major shift from when everyone arrived -- kind of nervous and quiet -- to the community, fun, and inspiration that was already clearly being created by the end of the first night! We accomplished this through lots of silliness and games and activities to learn more about each other. We also set goals, created agreements, and gave out journals our fabulous counselor Leanne made! It was also a first for most of our experienced camp staff: the campers were THRILLED to see how beautiful the cabins and whole space is! No ripped screen doors, gross beds, or outhouses! We knew the week would be a success when nobody complained about getting assigned to one cabin or another! Our campers are the best!! The facility was beautiful!
On Day 1, we also had our first Compassion Into Action (CIA) activity, where we focus on a social issue and what we can do to address it. For the first CIA, we focused on food and watched and discussed The Meatrix, which was a perfect context for sharing why all our camp food would be vegan and most would be organic, unprocessed, and local (for produce). Check out our camper testimonials if you have any doubt about young people loving great vegan food! Our closing circle gave campers and staff a chance to open up about what's important to them and why they care about making a difference. We inspired each other!