Girl Group | Summer Camp | Wk 2

To celebrate the last day of Girl Group Camp, one of our campers brought in poems she’d composed to celebrate each member of the group. Each recipient read her poem aloud and we all basked in words like “radiant,” “joyful,” “strong” and “kind.” It seemed an apt ending to our five-day exploration centered around “Accentuating Your Strengths.”

It was an active week. Special guests such as acupuncturist Holly Sawyer and yoga teacher, Laura Lyn helped the girls get in touch with their physicality. We practiced practical skills of boundary setting with sex-educator, Shannon Skov and learned new ways to advocate for our beliefs with representatives from local community action organization, ResistorhoodLA. Beloved Franklin Avenue Elementary teacher, Wendy Perez, joined us for some crafts and dressmaker, Christine Quigless from Whitman Grace, talked about the creative process.

We began each group with a poetry reading or guided mediation. We let the words ground us and act as an entry point for conversation and movement. The difficulty and necessity of holding more than one emotion is beautifully articulated in Donika Kelly’s “The moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.” Our discussion of non-verbal communication started with Faith Shearin’s poem, “The Bees Dance.”

Throughout the week, our group dynamics shifted and changed and by Friday, this group of multi-faceted Girls had become skilled at working together without losing their own separate identities.

We were so grateful to have spent a week in the company of these mature, graceful and curious Girls. We wish you a relaxing summer and do hope you’ll join us for our Fall Girl Group Series.

With gratitude,

Wes and Tanya