Middle School Friends Program: Weekend-long Gatherings

The Middle School Friends (or MSF) program holds 8 Yearly Meeting-wide gatherings at specific times with certain intentions attached. Generally they are about 6 or 7 weeks apart (except for the summer and holiday season) starting with a Labor Day gathering in September. 6 of these gatherings are overnights held at various Monthly Meetings or at Burlington conference center, and the other two programs are a smaller summer work-camp or joint middle-school event (such as a joint event with Baltimore or New York Yearly Meeting's Middle School Friends community), and lastly, a program during Residential Yearly Meeting.

The program holds these gatherings because it is vital that Quaker Middle Schoolers have an opportunity to really bond with peers in a safe and spirit-filled environment that offers them some self-determination and control, and a loving and open container for them to express themselves without needing to worry about what's "cool", or any other superficial judgement. The MSF program hopes to foster a sense that PYM's middle schoolers consider the friends they make during these gatherings their MOST important community.

Lastly, many of the gatherings are focused on various holidays, but not scheduled on the weekend OF the holiday so as to not compete with SO MANY other events that are typically scheduled around that time. The gatherings are scheduled with an eye for the rhythm of the schoolyear, the rhythm of the holydays, and how this all can gel with the overall calendar of the Yearly Meeting. Themes of the last year include "The Darkest Night, The Inner Light", "Unity, Diversity, and the myth of NORMAL", "Hibernation and the Holydays", "Our Food, our Fuel, our Fellowship", "Harvest and Halloween", "Working, Worshiping, and Witnessing", and "Communication, Community, and our Communion". Check the PYM calendar to find out about upcoming MSF gatherings.

For examples of what it's like to be at these gatherings, check out the MSF YOUTUBE channel and watch some videos taken by the Middle School Friends themselves! : www.youtube.com/user/PYMMSF