Dreaming about a virtual camp experience with your friends may set your creativity free or feel like a challenging task to conquer. We all want to keep our friends engaged, we want the excitement and adventure of a Young Life camp, we want surprise and creativity, we want our friends who have a harder time with technology to feel a part of what we are doing and ultimately, we want our friends to encounter Jesus. The information that you will find in this section aims to help with all of those elements!
This section has a complete virtual day camp experience mapped out for you. You are more than welcome to use all of it or to pick and choose what works best for you and your friends. It is designed to take place over three days, each day being five hours long. You’ll see that we mapped the day from 10am-3pm, but you can easily shift that to the hours that work best for you and your team.
We know that some areas will utilize their leaders to be up front, while others will choose the pre-recorded videos. Both are wonderful. We have kept everything separate this year so that you can pick and choose what you need. You’ll see that there are outlines that you can follow, if you or your leaders are going to run something, instead of using the videos.
A few details to get you started:
We’ve provided an Area Checklist to help ensure you have everything that you need
Every camper and leader will receive “Camp in a Bag” in order that they can fully participate. You’ll utilize the “Camp in a Bag” list and the Amazon links that are provided to get all of the items. You may want to set up an Amazon Wishlist to share with donors, committee and friends of YL. Once assembled, you can host a Drive-Thru parade for every campers & leader to pick up their bag.
Each day has a theme. Let’s encourage our friends to dress to the theme, but also in the supply list are items that you can include in their “Camp in a Bag” to help them be ready to participate!
Caring well for our leaders is a big part of camp. We’ll provide you with private links for each day, including a pre-camp Leaders Meeting!
Club will be pre-recorded with music, a speaker and a program team! We’ll provide you with private links for each day.
Cabin Time is one of the greatest ways that we can engage our friends in the gospel. We’ll provide you with a Cabin Time Guide and a list of tools that you and your friends can use to engage more fully with the gospel. You’ll want to include these items in your
“Camp in a Bag”. We’ve found it best to divide your group into small groups, using the Breakout Rooms feature on Zoom. This enables more intentional conversation and a chance for everyone to participate no matter the size of your camp.
Having one-on-one conversations with our friends to build relationships with them and talk about the gospel are a big part of any camp experience. We’ve included some thoughts on how you can do this creatively even during a local/virtual camp experience.
Program has created videos to help “sell” one activity each day. You’ll receive these pre-recorded links to show to help create energy and fun with each one.
The Mobile Snack Cart is designed to give your friends the feeling of going to the snack bar at camp! You can print out a banner for each vehicle helping you that is either from the camp you traditionally attend or the non-specific banner. These are designed to be printed at your local printing store (Office Depot, Staples, etc). Drivers for the Mobile Snack Bar can be leaders, committee, donors, Friends of YL and other YL staff! This is an awesome way to invite people into what you’re doing!
Another option for the snack bar is for leaders to bring a favorite snack to their friend during their One-on-One hang.
Who doesn’t love a camp award?! There are end of the week superlative awards that you can print and hand out to your friends at the final Drive-Thru Parade!
We’ve provided a hashtag: #WeAreCapernaum. Let’s fill social media with videos and photos of our friends during virtual day camp!
Have fun! We can’t wait to see all of your photos! We’re praying for you!