Middle School Aged Camping Program:

We believe that the Camp Rising Sun program can be adapted for a younger developmental stage and that by doing so, we can prepare middle school students from underserved communities for the full program later on in adolescence. Due to the competitive nature of the camper selection process, we hypothesize that young people who have not benefited from other enrichment activities fare worse when compared to their peers who have more exposure to opportunities. In addition to re-training our volunteer selectors, we will pilot various initiatives to make the selection process more equitable.

The middle school camping program will focus on students from the New York tri-state region in partnership with schools in underserved communities. We will work with school partners and co-create a selection process to identify promising students for whom the Camp Rising Sun program would be a life-altering experience. We will nurture a meaningful relationship with the students and their families that will include a week-long experience at Camp Rising Sun. The 40 students who participate in this program will have access to continued learning and activities until they reach 15 when they are eligible for Camp Rising Sun.

We hope that during the process of co-creating the program with schools, that our partnership evolves beyond identifying youth to attend our Camp. The hope is that we will be able to offer programs and activities to larger segments of the school community that reflect our values of ethical servant leadership development, intellectual pursuits and valuing diversity. We intend to leverage the abilities of our Gap Year program (described below) to support our middle school efforts.

As a pilot, this program will be co-located at Clinton utilizing the cabins in the summer of 2024. This program will allow us to reach more youth with the CRS mission and inspire more lifelong commitments to compassionate and responsible leadership. In further contributing to the program ecosystem, we plan to leverage the leadership skills of additional returning campers to help facilitate the middle school camping program and follow up activities throughout the year. As this program grows to include more middle school students, we hope to renovate areas of the Red Hook campus to offer a more permanent home to this program. We are currently brainstorming infrastructure grants to realize this important project.

Ideally, the cohort would include college students and those more advanced in their careers in the field of education. We will work to offer college credits or continuing education credits to incentivize participation.

This program will be staffed by an LAJF Program Coordinator and participant-led with the assistant of the paid fellows. We will bring in speakers who are specialists in their fields of study and leverage the talents of our alumni. This partnership will serve to re-engage alumni with the work of LAJF and continue their lifelong commitment to compassionate and responsible leadership.

The program would be fee-based with scholarships available and a small number of paid fellowships for those with more professional experience. This initiative will prepare a deeper “talent bench” of individuals who will be more qualified to work at Camp Rising Sun and help to further the reach of our program values. With more adults trained in our program model, they will be advocates in their professional fields to help advance the mission for the betterment of their communities and the world.

Activities include:

• Various social interactions in small and large groups to build community and friendships

• Camper-led instructions and workshops (Examples:

• Camper-led group projects (Examples: a social media project dedicated to spreading awareness on social justice issues, a digital yearbook which commemorates the program experience, and a blog which summarizes the program and includes campers ’topics of interest)

• Interactive staff-led workshops to provide learning opportunities for being an effective servant leader such as active listening, giving and receiving feedback, and creating more inclusive spaces.

• Four “Camper-led Days” where the participants make decisions on when to meet in their project groups and what “SST” activities they want to do together (Examples: language exchanges, yoga, collaborative online games, and small-group discussions)

Campers in the virtual program practice critical thinking and analysis by examining, for example, how issues like climate justice, racial justice, gender justice and economic justice are all interconnected - as are many other causes such as disability rights and migrant rights. Campers leave the program with deepened empathy, ability to understand societal power structures, and feeling more prepared to take action in their local communities.

Beginning in 2022, we will continue to offer Virtual Programs along with our in-person options. We anticipate offering Virtual CRS sessions during times of year convenient to various geographic regions and no longer be confined to the United States summer months. In addition to Virtual CRS we will offer Virtual Intensives which will focus deeply on one particular topic such as sustainability, art for social change, organizing for social justice and STEM. Virtual CRS will continue to be available for youth ages 15-16, aiming to serve 150 youth in five sessions. Virtual Intensives will be offered to 16-18 year olds, with an expected registration of 50 students. This program will allow us to reach more youth with the CRS mission and inspire more life-long commitments to compassionate and responsible leadership. These initiatives will be fee-based with scholarships available. In 2021, Virtual CRS was full-scholarship and the instensives were offered using a trust-based fee sliding scale.