Young Friends Spring Retreat
Young Friends are invited to gather for our last retreat of this school year! Young Friends retreats are special opportunities for high schoolers in New England to take a deeper dive into building community and exploring the Quaker way together.
This retreat will be an in person overnight weekend retreat held at Providence Friends Meeting in Providence, RI. Young Friends can arrive between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday May 19th when we'll play games and get to know one another, and then we'll spend one long Saturday deepening our connections to one another, building community, having meaningful conversations, exploring Quakerism, and having fun together. We'll end the retreat by worshiping with Providence Friends Meeting on Sunday morning and Young Friends should plan to leave between noon and 1 p.m. on Sunday May 21st.
The theme of this retreat is play and presence. This retreat is all about playing so that we can be more present together with Spirit! Young Friends are experts at using play to open up to each other– with the icebreakers and group games we play at the beginning of each retreat, the silly songs, the late night card games and puzzles, chasing each other around in the sun, and encouraging each other be a little weirder than we are in other places. Play helps us take our guard down and show our true selves, the selves God wants us to be. There are other less obvious ways we play too– when we make space for playing with self-expression, when we play with the words we use to describe our spiritual experiences, and when we worship in creative, experimental ways that help us see how Spirit works amongst us. This weekend we’ll lift up those kinds of play too, and reflect on how we want to incorporate this playfulness into our lives, guided by Quakerism.
Covid precautions for this retreat:
All participants, including Young Friends and staff, must be vaccinated in order to attend (including all boosters as eligible), unless you have a doctor's note with an exemption.
All participants should take an at home Covid test before leaving home. For those who are not able to do this, we will have tests available to take upon arrival.
Masking will be optional indoors for this retreat until Sunday morning when we will comply with the Covid restrictions Providence Friends have in place for their meeting for worship.
Delicious meals will be provided by our Exalted Food Wizard, Carol Baker, with something for everyone according to the dietary needs you describe when you register. We sleep on the floor, so Young Friends should being sleeping bags and sleeping pads, or reach out to Maggie to borrow things to sleep on. Bathrooms are single stall and gender neutral.
This retreat is "pay-as-led," meaning families can pay what they are able on a scale from $0 to $150+. Families may pay online upon registration, or enter $0 and bring a check or cash to the retreat. Here are three suggested tiers:
$40 covers some of the cost of one YF attending
$75 covers the basic cost of one YF attending
$150 covers the full cost of one YF attending as well as related costs for putting on this event
Please register by Monday, May 8th.