Registration is open for this summer’s Young Adult and Youth (YAY) Gathering! This intergenerational event held July 2-5 in Michigan centers younger generations of Friends: children and youth, their parents, and young adults. As you discern whether the YAY Gathering is a good fit for you, your family, or someone you love, I’d like to share three reasons why you might want to attend.

Experience an event centered on the needs and experiences of younger generations.

Lots of events say they have “something for everyone”—meaning, a wide variety of offerings so that any individual person can find something they will enjoy. The YAY Gathering has a lot that is truly for everyone, all together: all-ages worship, intergenerational games, crafts, and activities, a dance party, a talent show, a group storytelling session.

Centering younger generations means that play, humor, movement, story, active engagement, and creative expression are prioritized in everything we do. It means that we hold lightly how things have been done in the past, ready to experiment and explore. What else might characterize an intergenerational event centering younger Friends? Come and see, and create it with us!

Explore and connect through creativity, worship, and play.

The YAY Gathering theme is “Peace Like a River, Joy Like a Fountain: Nourishing Spirit through Creativity, Worship, and Play.” Every YAY attender is invited to nourish their own spirit, and their connection with Spirit, through art, music, dance, and daily worship. We invite play through outdoor games, board games, sprinklers on the lawn to splash through—and through a spacious schedule with plenty of unrushed free time.

Ground yourself and your family in loving, inclusive community.

In a social and political context of deep division and dehumanization, YAY Gathering staff and volunteers believe that this event is needed and important. We seek to create a space where trans and queer identities are celebrated, where a commitment to racial justice infuses every part of what we do, and where Friends experience and offer one another love, belonging, and kindness. We come together to remind each other and ourselves that this kind of community and way of being in the world is not only possible, but critical, and holy.

I would love for you to join us.

With gratitude,
Kody Hersh

Young Adult and Youth Ministries Coordinator