Camp Sojourner’s Story
How it all started…
Camp Sojourner was founded in 2007 by Alisha Berry and Kandace Thomas, when we were accepted into Resources for Human Development’s nonprofit incubator program. Modeled after Camp Oh-Neh-Tah in New York where Alisha and Kandace had worked as young adults, Camp Sojourner was envisioned as an affordable camp that would bring together girls from all over the city of Philadelphia, focusing on leadership, team building, creative arts, and appreciation of nature. Alisha, who is from Philadelphia, wanted to see a camp similar to Camp Oh-Neh-Tah, that would serve Philly girls and truly build leadership by having campers and parents/guardians on our Advisory Board from the outset. We chose Sojourner Truth as our namesake because she was a strong leader representing intersectional politics, tying together race, class, and gender in her life and work. We wanted to help grow the leadership skills of girls, to make positive changes in their own lives and in the world around them, while offering positive affordable programming in a landscape where few options existed. We found the New Jersey School of Conservation as our first rental site after months of research and site visits throughout the tri-state area, and Camp Sojourner was born!
Structure
We originally planned to run a summer-long camp, with a few sessions per summer. We ran our first pilot session in 2008 with 50 girls, to prove to potential funders that we had a workable model. That fall, the stock market crashed and many funders lost significant assets, pulling back funding from startups like ours. We therefore scaled back our program offerings and the number of girls we served, and slowly built back up over the next few years. Running a one-session program for a few years showed us the benefits of being able to have adult professionals come work with us for a week, who would not be able to take off for the whole summer. We therefore decided to keep our one week summer camp model and expand into year-round weekend programming, rather than expanding into a summer-long camp as originally planned. We began working closely with a local organic farm, creative arts programming, social justice education, mentoring, college tours and more.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were up to 80 youth at our summer camp, over 100 people including staff/ camp alum. The pandemic shifted our camp to a two-week part online and part outdoor masked day camp. In 2022 we began back at overnight camp and are slowly building back our numbers. Now in our 17th year of operation in 2024, we host our one-week overnight summer camp and 2-3 activities per month year-round. We hope to have 65 youth at camp this summer, 90 people total, with the majority of our staff being camp alumni.
Who We Serve
In 2007 and 2008, we recruited our first Advisory Board comprised of youth and adults, many who were students at the high school where Alisha taught at the time, as well as her former camp colleagues. We set up parent info sessions at schools and community centers around the city, intending to recruit campers from various neighborhoods with a range of racial/ethnic identities, to build strong relationships in the camp setting across “differences”. However, based on the young people already on the Advisory Board and our personal connections and friends, the families who sent their campers to our first session in 2008 were primarily African American/Black-identified. This ended up shaping the course of our camp community, as families referred other family members and friends over the years. We have come to appreciate and embrace Camp Sojourner as a Black and Brown-centered space, though this was not the original mission of the camp. It is a rare and beautiful gift for Black and Brown girls/youth to be the majority in a camp setting, to have their culture reflected in the staff and programs they are a part of. The majority of our staff are now camp alum, and they help to carry forth this tradition.
We do embrace a wide range of diversity in many other ways, and we do welcome campers from families who identify as White/Caucasian. We have always had this group represent a portion of our camp community. However, we are committed to keeping Black and Brown girls/youth in the majority, as this is such a rare occurrence in an overnight camp setting. We ask that White/Caucasian families who apply to attend Camp Sojourner be aware of what it means to be in a Black and Brown-centered space, and open to discussion about how to be a part of this space mindfully.
With respect to gender, we have widened our language to include girls/youth, because we do welcome nonbinary youth who are excited to be part of a girl-centered space. While we seek to be inclusive, we also understand that for many young people, a girl-centered space is still a radical gift, and for some families it is the only way they would permit their child to attend an overnight camp. We are happy to honor the preferred pronouns of all campers and staff, while still maintaining our girls’ camp identity. We refer to our campers collectively as “Sojourners”.
Finally, we maintain our mission to be affordable and offer a sliding scale, with significant scholarships available. Our camp families who do not identify as low income pay more in tuition, which helps to cover costs for the rest of our families. All of our year-round programs are offered for free.