Awesomesayfers@gmail.com
Around the world, Quaker youth come together under the name of Young Friends. For over a hundred years these groups have offered youth in the Religious Society of Friends an opportunity for worship, fellowship and service to others.
Theme: Music In Our Lives. Although our group was smaller than usual, with many of our dear friends absent due to end-of-school-year commitments, the SAYF group had a great time in Music City. On Saturday, we took a trip to the National Museum of African American Music where we took a walk across time, seeing…
Cultivating Community: This retreat was about being witness of and experiencing how it feels to be in a space such as Celo where we activity participate in a cultivated community. We experienced Tai Chi which grounded us and lead us to tap into the energy around us. We further Immersed ourselves into community land, enjoyed…
Nurturers from Atlanta, Celo, Asheville, Berea, Durham and Chapel Hill gathered for a nurturers retreat to plan SAYF retreats. We completed productive business meetings on Saturday, and enjoyed time spent talking, watching movies, playing music, and creating amazing hairstyles during our down time.
Climbing Through Change: We began Saturday morning with a breakfast made by A’s mom in celebration of her 15th birthday (Quincenera). We learned some about what a Quincenera means as a coming of age ceremony in Latinx culture. Following that we made bottle cap pins, using paint, collage material, and markers, then sealing it with…
Taking care of ourselves and our community: We did mindfulness activities & learned how to do body scans to find out where we are holding stress and how to discharge energy. We explored Duke gardens, performed a skit for our Stone Soup community potluck, then had a Fishbowl with local adults.
There were 9 youth staying the night both nights. A few teens from Berea joined us on Saturday but didn’t stay the night. We then packed a sack lunch and ate it at the Pinnacles Amphitheater in the Berea College Forest. The young Friends performed a talent show on the stage and then we hiked…
This retreat was a great start to the new SAYF year. We began Saturday morning with opening circle followed by the talent show, which was different then when the talent show is usually scheduled, but went off quite well with the teens. We then packed burrito lunches and loaded into cars to drive about 30…
We had 9 in person and two remote nurturers plan for the next year of SAYF retreats. It was a wonderful and productive weekend – business meetings interspersed with games, music, movies, and walking into downtown Black Mountain for ice cream.
Twenty SAYFers and five FANs gathered for SAYF at SAYMA. We worked with Faith & Practice to speak to three of their queries and lead discussions at the Friday plenary. We went to the pool, walked to Brushy Fork, led Intergenerational Games, did some contra dancing, met with teens from a local youth group, and…
We had a very informative MLK Day retreat. We learned about local and international conflicts. We learned about the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta and had did a spectrum activity where we got a chance to think about our personal beliefs about safety, peace, and policing. We got to chalk the sidewalks in Decatur…