From June 19th to June 24th of 2023, TACL LYF held its 40th annual youth summer camp in Northern California at Alliance Redwoods Conference Grounds. This year’s summer camp had 135 campers with over 30 staff members. Coming back from Covid, the demand for these in-person connections is higher than ever. As a result, TACL LYF experienced a new high in demand with a waitlist of up to 40 campers.

Leading Youth Forward (LYF) Camp is a weeklong Taiwanese American youth leadership summer camp that is designed to be a safe environment for youth to discover and develop who they are. TACL LYF’s mission is to help individuals become whole person leaders through an understanding of heritage, self, and the world. The week-long camp consists of traditional American summer camp activities such as campfire and mixed with Taiwanese cultural experiences like dragon boat racing and night market games. Another main pillar of this camp include workshops designed by staff to foster self-awareness and self-discovery.

Besides the unique mix of activities, what makes TACL LYF unique is the lifelong community it fosters. The TACL LYF community consists of both second and third generation campers, 100% volunteered staff, and supportive parents. Most of the staff in leadership positions today have been a part of the organization for 4+ years, many of which were also once campers themselves. Three of the four program directors this year (Julia, Aileen, and Michael) were campers for multiple years before joining the staff team after graduating high school. 

This year’s theme is LYF: The Greatest Show, a play on The Greatest Showman movie. It is about braving the unknown sea of judgment and discrimination to reveal your authentic self to the world.

The takeaway and goal for campers this year is to know that when the sharpest words want to cut you down, TACL LYF is here to hold space for even those parts of yourself you feel the need to hide away. Make no apologies, this is you.
To learn more about TACL LYF, visit https://lyf.tacl.org/ .