Week Three of the 2025 Encampment

The last week of the 2025 Encampment started with two inspiring field trips. On Monday, the Encampers traveled to Los Angeles to meet with the Community Coalition (CoCo) in South Central LA. “During our visit, Encampers heard from powerful community leaders, including founding member and attorney Mary; youth organizer-turned-senior policy director Glaus; activist Alberto, who shared about demonstrations against ICE; and Pati, who spoke about their campaign against sex trafficking along Figueroa Street,” said Program Director Jesus Salcido. “The day included a youth exchange with members of SCYEA (South Central Youth Empowered thru Action), where Encampers and local youth connected over shared concerns like school policing and underfunded education. They exchanged stories and strategies from successful campaigns to improve schools and build power in their communities.” Click to hear the 2025 interns introduce the EFC to CoCo.

“My skills as a community organizer have grown from organizations such as the Community Coalition (CoCo) in South Central Los Angeles. They spoke to us about their love for their community and campaigns against predatory businesses in their neighborhood. We learned about the power of community consensus. I want to implement the strategies I gained from COCO into my community in Sacramento.” — Ola, second-year Encamper

Click for a video of Ola asking a question about techniques to use for advocating with a local school board.

Tuesday found them back in Oxnard at Pyramid Flowers, for a powerful opportunity to explore the intersections of labor, immigration, and environmental justice through a unique lens: the floral industry. As part of this learning experience/community service project, Encampers learned about the business of growing flowers from seed to bouquet and helped serve lunch to local farmworkers, prepared by Chef Tim Kilcoyne (@cheftimk). This field trip was made possible through our collaboration with the local organization Friends of Fieldworkers (@friendsoffieldworkers).

Click for a video of the Encampers helping to serve lunch to the farmworkers.

“It shows me how hard they work. It takes a lot of work and dedication to do this job [farm worker].” — Demarcus, 2025 Encamper

Augusto at Pyramid Flowers.
Encampers with Chef Tim
Brooklyn and Ola at Pyramid Flowers

Anneshia Hardy leading workshop

Community organizers and strategists from last year’s summer program collaboration in Alabama led a workshop about social impact organizing. Destiny Williams Levy and Anneshia Hardy of Alabama Values were joined by Chris Hardy and Zariyah, a youth member of their group. Alabama Values is a grassroots communication organization that leverages narrative, messaging and culture to break down barriers to civic engagement, counter mis/disinformation and build people-power on pro-democracy issues. Click for a video of Destiny Williams Levy.

Encampers received a “3-Point Strategy Lab” — a detailed worksheet for their “organizing, messaging, and culture-making journey.” Click here to view it. Encampers found this systematic and energetic approach to organizing inspiring.

Later that day, Ola and Annie, seeing a gap in the understanding of what it means to be “Asian,” collaborated on a PowerPoint presentation for their peers and the staff. Click to view this eye-opening slide show, “The Other Side of Asia.”.

Trans Herstory Presentation

Krissy, a2025 Encamper, saw a similar gap and worked with the rest of her leadership team (Leonardo, Myijade, Augusto, and Noah), with the support of staff member Nik, to bring more awareness of the history, politics, and culture of trans and other LGBTQIA+ people. Krissy shared information about Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman who “advocated fiercely for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, especially homeless queer youth, sex workers, and trans women of color, long before mainstream society began acknowledging them.” Click for her slideshow “Trans Herstory.”

Krissy also highlighted the Stonewall Uprising* [see related links at end of the post] and the importance of recognizing the intersectionality of this civil rights struggle with the other groups working for justice then and now.

A spirited interactive discussion followed that acknowledged the tension in various other civil rights movements that struggled with homophobia and xenophobia. The discussion included examples of other cultures throughout time where non-binary people are celebrated. Krissy mentioned the impact of recent federal legislation that is pulling trans men and women from athletic teams. This affects her directly because she can no longer play volleyball at her school. She also spoke about how gender dysphoria can be lethal for young people who do not look like their assigned gender.

Board Member Faith Kares commented, “When Krissy shared her experience, it was clear that it is one thing to learn about history and another to know someone who is impacted and living it. This is not only about gender dysphoria but about one’s safety and the need to avoid looking different. People who look different are targeted for hate crimes.”

In a later interview, Krissy said, “A lot of people don’t understand the trans experience … We’re just people trying to live our life, live happily, not have to watch our backs.” She added, “I felt received and understood [at the Encampment]. I was appreciated. It’s been a really great experience. I hadn’t felt safe this safe as a trans woman before.”

The InterGen weekend began for the in-person participants on Friday evening with a welcome circle. To begin the process, Encamper Evangeline introduced the feather and talked about the late EFC alum Ada Deer and the circle process that she initiated as a former board member. When one person holds the feather, all attention is on the speaker until they pass feather to the next person.

In the morning session, Encampers, staff, alums and guests came together to individually and collectively to “Name the Moment.” Education Director Jane Sapp’s goal was to help the Encampers connect to the historical roots of today’s social justice issues, think strategically, and understand that they are creating history now. For the older folks, it was an opportunity for them to reflect on and share their experiences and strategies.

The questions that the group explored are:

What are the questions that you carry with you in this moment?
How would you help someone understand 100 years from now what these times were? (What were people reading? What music were they listening to? What brought people together — what divided people? What in was in the news? What was the government like?)

Click for a video of Noah speaking in the group discussion about the importance of learning history.

Click for Jane’s inspirational comment on community as an act of resistance.

The lunch groups were arranged by Board Member A’Shaela Chaires (2014 alum) in groups that reflected their areas of interest/experience, such as education or social sciences, to facilitate intergenerational exchange and networking.

The afternoon hybrid Zoom session brought people together in small breakout groups to continue this exploration. People expressed how they are meeting this moment in time — their questions, fears, and joys.

In the evening, the Encampers invited the online and in-person guests to share in their EFC learning journey through their creative presentations. This was a demonstration of the EFC’s approach to both social justice and youth leadership education. Here are a few presentations that do not use copyrighted material — all except for “Amazing Grace” were created by the Encampers, interns and staff.

Amazing Grace sung by Brooklyn Gentry, accompanied by Augusto, Nik Pettye and Dr. Chan Ho Yun.

Fight Injustice by Braeden.

Krissy and Augusto wrote “Sad to See” with help from Imani with lyrics. Click to view them perform this song at the InterGen.

Group theater piece inspired by ICE presence at protests.

Click for the perfomance of the song “Journey to the U.S.” written by Encampers inspired by their immigration workshop. Click for lyrics.

Although there were tech issues with the Facebook Live presentations, most are available at these links. The creative presentations are not meant to be a professional broadcast but rather an intimate sharing from the Encampers’ hearts and minds. They are inviting you into their Encampment experience since you cannot be there in-person with them.

The beginning (on our Drive): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NhwqNiGDNxPaHwd-WOzKCoStdN37_vYH/view?usp=sharing

The second section (on Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/theencampment/videos/1289867506047025

The third section (on Facebook): you have to scroll past the closed curtain…https://www.facebook.com/theencampment/videos/677054925363391

“There were theater pieces, painting drawing, dancing, and singing — all of them thinking through big concepts in social justice and exploring what matters. It wasn’t just about that, either — there was so much feeling on the stage — they were so brave to talk about what really matters to them. The young people put together a space where their stories could be heard and valued — where they could hear themselves speak, yell, shout.” – Faith Kares, Board Member

On Sunday morning, Board Members Kares and Maxx Guffey, and second-year Encamper Ola, facilitated the final workshop. The mystery object activity was an engaging way to expand participants’ toolkits for strategic social justice work by expanding critical thinking skills and the mindfulness and compassion essential for social justice work. The key takeaways were understanding how your identity shapes the way you see the world, asking questions, avoiding assumptions, and acting with humility and compassion.

Maxx leading his section of the Mystery Object Activity
Ola leading her section.
Board members Faith and Maxx.

InterGen Quotes

“Everywhere you looked, there were great conversations between alums and young people happening. People are thirsty for this contact and exchange. Also, we had different generations of alums since we had younger alums from 2014–2023 and ranging back to the 1940s. In some of the small hybrid breakout groups, members were moved to tears by the dialogue.” — Margot Gibney, Executive Director

“I love all the creative and interesting conversations we’re having so far … I’m excited to see what the students are doing. I’m just happy to be here. The Encampment means community to me. Community is a very broad word, but community is like family. It’s like a family reunion.” — Jaden Banks, 2022–2023 alum

“It’s really just an amazing time for all generations to come together. And I think that it’s one of the beautiful things about the Encampment to have that network. It’s really beautiful just to see people smiling, having conversations, and getting to know one another.” — Maribel Mendoza, 2021–2022 alum, 2025 intern

“The InterGen is such an inspirational experience — to see how these young people are finding a vision and a voice and courage and being willing to step up … What the Encampment does is bring people together and ask these young people what’s important to you? What are you concerned about? What opportunities do you see to improve our society? Then giving them the tools to do that through their own leadership and communications and facilitation skills.” — Elliott Black, EFC alum (1981) and board member

“This is my first time experiencing the InterGen. My friend Angel Mendez brought me and introduced me, and I have been loving it thoroughly. It’s been great to get different perspectives from different people of different walks of life and different communities. Talking about community involvement and conscious decision-making as a citizen and as a voter, as a consumer. It’s been healthy and cathartic. I can’t wait to participate more.” — Tyler French

*Stonewall Uprising — note from the presentation: The National Parks Service recently took the word “trans” off and removed the letters TIA from “LGBQTIA” on their Stonewall webpage as part of the current administration’s attempt to make gender strictly binary.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/stonewall-riots/

https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/stonewall-era

https://www.nps.gov/ston/learn/historyculture.htm

Thank you to the staff, interns and Encampers! Thank you to our community partners who created such special learning and service opportunities. A special thank you to our intern Brooklyn Gentry who provided photos and video for this post! Shout out to Margot Gibney for her text additions. Ongoing gratitude for our copyeditor, alum Ruth Thaler-Carter. We are glad to acknowledge images and/or video from photo/videographers, Adriana Campos-Ojeda who can be reached at aoc.cinema@gmail.com and Elibet Valencia Muñoz who can be reached at: LUSTER OPTICS.

Support youth leadership development. All donations are welcome! Click to DONATE ONLINE or send your gift to The Encampment, P.O. Box 1210, Aptos, CA 95001-1210. Our Federal EIN is 30-0694938. You can help build support for the EFC’s work by sharing this post with your network!

Click to visit our Honor-Someone-by-Sponsoring-2025-Encampers page. You can see the ways to donate and view the slider where people are honoring folks who inspire them.