Classes include ‘Loving Your Trans Body.’

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A network of left-wing nonprofits is using summer programming to recruit middle and high school students into ideological training camps focused on race, gender, policing, LGBTQ issues, protest politics, and school activism.

This includes “social justice” activism training in “witchcraft” tactics such as effigy burning, protest and sign making, and learning how to live in a transgender body. (All while challenging white supremacy, the patriarchy, and heteronormativity…)

In several cases, the youth are not merely attending. They are being paid.

Many of the programs also rely on the same donor-backed infrastructure that has spent years pushing ethnic studies, anti-racist education, LGBTQ curriculum, and “systems change” politics into schools.

In Vermont, the Education Justice Coalition, one of the clearest examples of the model, lists donors including the Vermont Department of Health.

1. Education Justice Coalition of Vermont: Paid Youth, LGBTQ Ideology, Anti-Racism, And School Campaigns

The Education Justice Coalition’s Summer Social Justice Camp is described as a day camp “by youth and for youth.” Its own materials show the camp covered identity, LGBTQIA+ rights, feminism, gun violence, anti-racism, disability rights, lawmaking, and “Youth Action.”

Students also heard from speakers tied to FreeHer, Planned Parenthood, Vermont Center for Independent Living, Green Mountain Self-Advocates, and local government.

The group says youth who attended the 2023 camp were “compensated for their time.”

That compensation sits inside a broader organizing model. EdJ’s youth organizing page says the group aims to build youth “skills and capacity” so students can run “successful campaigns for education justice” at their local schools and districts. The page also says many of its youth leadership opportunities include stipends.

The group is not simply hosting summer activities for students. It is training young people to become political actors inside their schools.

2. The Toolkit: Stipends Built Into The Replication Model

The Education Justice Coalition also created a toolkit for others to replicate its Summer Social Justice Camp model.

The Action Network-hosted “Summer Social Justice Camp Toolkit” includes budget lines for stipends. Promotional materials show “Stipends for participants” at $150, with 18 participants receiving $25 for each day of camp, totaling $2,700. It also lists stipends for youth facilitators at $800 each for three youth facilitators, totaling $2,400.

3. EdJ’s 2026 Expansion: Multiple Camps Across Vermont

The Vermont model is now expanding.

Education Justice Coalition’s events page lists multiple 2026 Summer Social Justice Camps, including programs in Chittenden, Caledonia, Addison, and Windham counties. The group describes the camps as focused on social justice and organized “by youth for youth.”

It also lists “Camp Free to Be,” a BIPOC-centered overnight summer camp for youth ages 12 to 17. The camp is described as a place for youth of color to connect with nature, experience connection and healing, and build community.

4. Youth 4 Change: $300 For Completing A Summer Social Justice Camp

In Brattleboro, Vermont, Youth 4 Change, a program of The Root Social Justice Center, is running a Summer Social Justice Camp in partnership with the Education Justice Coalition.

Youth 4 Change describes itself as a space for multi-racial youth interested in social justice, healing, art, and youth leadership. Its camp page says workshops align with the group’s core values of Art, Action, Education, and Healing while prioritizing youth, BIPOC, queer, and historically marginalized communities.

An Instagram post for the camp says youth ages 12 to 18 who complete the camp receive a $300 stipend.

5. Freedom Inc.: $200 For Youth Organizing Against Police In Schools

In Wisconsin, Freedom Inc. has run a Freedom Youth Organizing Camp for youth of color ages 12 to 18.

Local coverage of the camp said participants would learn public speaking, door knocking, canvassing, and data analysis. The camp was tied to the “No Cops In School” campaign, which sought to push Madison schools to divest from police.

Participants who completed the two-week day camp were offered a $200 stipend.

Freedom Inc.’s own program page says its youth programs work to end violence against girls and LGBTQ+ people through political education, leadership development, and relationship building. It also lists programs involving LGBTQ issues, domestic violence, patriarchy, homophobia, racism, and classism.

6. Youth Mentoring Collaborative: $250 For A Summer Social Justice Academy

In North Carolina, Youth Mentoring Collaborative advertises a Summer Social Justice Academy for high school students.

Participants receive a $250 stipend, engage in peer learning and group projects, learn the history of youth civic engagement in North Carolina, meet social justice advocates from across the state, and complete a project that the group says will be used to support nonprofit programs in the Triangle.

7. Odyssey Teen Camp: Protest Politics And The “White Supremacist, Capitalist, Hetero-Patriarchy”

Odyssey Teen Camp advertises social justice programming with language such as “Discuss, Protest, Change The world!” Its activities include making protest signs and marching through camp.

One class, “Fashion, Politics, Identity & Style,” asks how personal fashion can “disrupt the white supremacist, capitalist, hetero-patriarchy.” Another offering is titled “Loving Your Trans Body.”

In one camp write-up, the program says teens came up with questions including: “What if I relied on my neighbors to look out for me instead of the police?” and “What would it take for my trans and non-binary friends to feel safe and happy in this world?”

The author then approvingly quotes a co-counselor’s description of the camp project: “We are creating our own little utopia.”

That “utopia,” according to the camp’s own language, is explicitly organized around dismantling traditional norms and confronting race, gender, and identity politics.

“The perfect utopia for a queer teenager cannot have heteronormative expectations,” the camp write-up states. “We cannot be a great place for a child of color ‘to be exactly who they are’ without interrogating whiteness and educating our camp community on racism.”

The same passage adds that the camp must “constantly confront stigmas, -isms, and biases” so it can be a “safe space for all campers and staff.”

The camp’s programming also includes an activity called “Protest class!” described as a “silly-but-serious class” where teens “make their protest sign and stage impromptu protests around camp.” The camp says teens carry signs with slogans including “I Get My Cardio Running Away From Heteronormativity” and recite call-and-response chants.

Another activity is titled “Effigy burning.”

“This class uses a little witchcraft to bring catharsis,” the camp description says. “We build cardboard representations of oppressions and injustices (or things we just don’t really like) and then (safely!) burn them up in a campfire.”

The Larger Pattern

The programs vary by state, nonprofit, and branding. The pattern is consistent.

These programs are not merely giving students a place to spend the summer. They are introducing minors to ideological frameworks, activist tactics, nonprofit networks, and school-based political campaigns.

The new youth activism model does not stop at the classroom door. It follows students into summer programming, pays them to participate, and trains them to bring the politics back into their schools.

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