NAD, Jr. NAD, and Miss Deaf America!

This morning we did something different with the campers. We had a wrap up session for the campers with the camp director. The campers were given the chance to give feedback on the program so we can improve for next year! We truly value the campers' input and opinions, there is always room for improvement! YLC is, after all, all about the experience of our campers!

Today we had two very important guests visit us here at YLC. Melissa Draganac-Hawk, who is a member on the NAD Board, and Michelle Lapides, Miss Deaf America 2008-2010! Melissa gave a workshop to the campers about NAD, Jr. NAD, and state associations. The campers learned about what these associations have to offer and how they can become involved in their communities! She talked about the importance of NAD and what services they provide for deaf people throughout the United States. Melissa also talked about how important it is to fundraise for their organizations. The campers and Melissa made lists for fundraising ideas that they can use to raise money for their Jr.NAD branches! She explained the different ways campers can get involved in NAD, the campers have already gotten a head start by coming to YLC!

After yet another delicious dinner, the campers got to host tonight's evening program. Everyone was buzzing with excitement because the campers got to decide what they wanted to do for the evening, and what they wanted was for the staff to perform for an Improv Night! The campers had a lot of laughs as the staff made utter fools of themselves up on stage! Everyone had a great time!

Tonight we had two fireside speakers, Melissa Draganac-Hawk and Michelle Lapides. Melissa talked about the importance of appreciating culture. She explained about her experience traveling around the world and how she learned to appreciate other countries values and culture, even if they did not match with her own. She told us about one of her experiences traveling through Africa with a friend. They were in Zimbabwe and stopped at this one town, specifically a very unique restaurant. She and her friend are both vegetarians, but they decided it was important to respect the culture at that restaurant and eat the meat they served there. On the menu: Zebra, ostrich, alligator, boar, and snake! It was a once in a lifetime experience for her that she is glad she took! She recommended a book called Culture Shock and gave us tips for traveling in different countries. She emphasized how important it is to read up about any country you are planning to visit before you go so that you can become familiar with their values, customs and cultural beliefs. We all really enjoyed Melissa's story and wish we had time to hear more of her adventures!

After Melissa wrapped up, Michelle Lapides got up in front of us to give her fireside chat! She told us about her experience with the Miss Deaf America competition. She explained that she has wanted to be Miss Deaf America since she was five years old and she met the Miss Deaf America at that time when she came to visit Michelle's class in Kendall school in DC. She became fascinated with the sparkly tiara and immediately knew that she wanted to follow in her footsteps. She approached Miss Deaf America and asked if she could borrow her blue dress when she runs for Miss Deaf America when she was old enough. Who was Miss Deaf America when Michelle was five? Our very own Jennifer Yost Ortiz! Michelle went on to describe how her life long dream was made a reality, she told the campers that if they have dreams, they should go for them! She shared an inspiring quote: "The world needs dreamers, and the world needs doers. Above all, the world needs dreamers that do!" She wrapped up by giving advice to those who are interested in running for Miss Deaf America, "Just be confident, be yourself and it will shine through!"

Melissa was ready and happy to answer any questions our campers might have!

The campers watching the presentation on NAD.

Adam Jarashow acting as a ballerina playing football and order a meal from McDonalds all at the same time!

Adam won best actor for that performance!

Jon Kessel acting like a contestant for Miss YLC!

Martin and Shari having an argument about leaving hair in the drain!

The Pixel's final fireside performance!

Melissa Draganac-Hawk telling us about her traveling experiences.

Miss Deaf America: Michelle Lapides!

Knowing very well that tomorrow is the last day of YLC, we gathered in Leadership Hall to wish each other a heartfelt YLC '09 GOOD NIGHT!

The Importance of Culture and ASL Night!

Vlog by Firefly

Calisthenics? We are so up for it! At the beginning of YLC, most of us didn’t like morning exercises, but today it started to grow on us. The campers will return to home and continue their morning calisthenics, we hope! Morning exercises rock our socks off!

We had a guest speaker today! From Rochester, New York, we welcomed Dr. Peter Hauser to YLC! Peter graduated from Central Connecticut State University in 1994. He then went to Gallaudet University, where he obtained his MA degree in 1998 and his PhD degree in 2000. He currently works as the Director of Deaf Studies Lab at NTID and as Director of Neurocongitive Research at Gallaudet. Today he gave us, the YLCERS, a workshop on “Cultural Knowledge: Identity and Cultural Capital.”

We learned that deaf and hearing people’s brains function differently, deaf people use both sides of their brains because we are visual people while the hearing people tend to use only the left side of their brain. The left side of the brain focuses on linguistics and speech. The right side of the brain focuses on creativity and the use of space. In Peter's studies, there is living proof of the idea that the more visual space used, the more stimulation people get in the right sides of their brains!

After explaining two different aspects on deaf and hearing people’s brains, we moved onto the topic of our own cultures and the influence on us. We learned that we have two different kind of cultural influences. The first one is cultural capital which represents the major society of the United States and the second one is the community culture wealth. It is something that the minority has, such as Deaf culture. The ability to be able to integrate ourselves in both cultures improves our ability to succeed in the world. After the presentation, we had a chance to discuss it with our groups and we were able to determine how the things that came up in the workshop apply to what we learned in NAD YLC. We also discussed how these cultural influences will become present in our lives after YLC.

We truly enjoyed the workshop by Dr. Peter Hauser!

“I learned that the locations we all come from lead us to have different cultures and ways to look at life.” – Anthony Finocchio, Camper

For tonight's evening program we had our ASL night! The two hosts, Jordan Ramser and Jay Werner, did great job planning and running the event! There were no judges tonight because ASL night is all about having fun! Campers and staff lined up by the stage to tell their jokes and perform ASL stories! Some stories were so funny that we were all rolling on the floor of Leadership Hall laughing! All in all, ASL night was a major success, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to practice and gain experience being on stage and polish up on our storytelling skills!

For fireside we had two speakers: Peter Hauser and Amy Siebert! Peter summarized his life, explaining about how he was adopted, and how he became deaf after being sick with spinal meningitis. Peter explained that when he became deaf he didn't realize he was deaf, he thought the whole world had gone silent! He resisted learning sign language for a long time. He finally became immersed in the deaf community later during college, he realized that he had a passion for deaf research. He opened the floor for questions and the campers were definitely curious! His stories made us laugh, especially his most embarrassing moment! We wont publish it here for the world to see, but if you ever meet Peter, see if he will tell you. We guarantee you will laugh so hard that your sides will split! After Peter wrapped up, Amy Siebert, YLC staff, took the floor. She explained that she has a deaf family and a very close relationship with her parents and siblings. She explained how grateful she was to her parents for preparing her for everything she would ever need to face. However, one thing her parents never prepared her for was the loss of a friend. A few weeks before her high school graduation, a friend of hers committed suicide. She explained her experience dealing with the loss of her friend without being able to know or understand exactly why he did it. She explained that her friend had been bullied, and that it seemed that he didn't really talk to anyone about his depression. She left the campers with some valuable advice: if you feel depressed or suicidal, talk to someone; killing or hurting yourself will not solve anything. We were all touched by Amy's story, some of us got emotional thinking of the pain she had to go through.


Esther Fass and Kassie Stutler watching campers talk about their culture.


Greg Beattie watching as the campers discuss Peter Hauser's presentation!


Amy Siebert gives her input to a group of campers.


Richard Bertling pondering during the group discussion.


What's on your mind, John Hagner?


Jillian Apfel listening to her fellow campers.


Leo Curry watches as Dathan Brown talks about his background


Uh oh, Lanna Hostovsky has her mischievous smile on her face!


Dr. Peter Hauser talking about how deaf and hearing people's brains are different!


Assistant Chef Martin Dale-Hench preparing lunch for our hungry campers!

Just two days left of YLC? We all gathered together at the end of the night to cry YLC '09 GOOD NIGHT, knowing that this tradition will soon be put to rest until next year for future YLCers.

A Puzzle of a Day!

Callus is back to write this blog once again!

This morning’s exercise went fantastically! The best thing about having the calisthenics in the mornings is the energy we always retrieve from exercising! For some reasons, some campers start laughing as we exercise so our mood is lifted up instantly! After exercising, we went to Leadership Hall to gobble a healthy breakfast!

After breakfast we had a Camp Council meeting. We discussed about few important topics, especially upcoming events and projects such as the Camp Project, ASL Night, Banquet, and the you-decide Evening Program. We brainstormed about what we should make for our camp project. After creating an official list of the ideas, the campers voted and decided on what we will make for YLC! After wrapping up on the Camp Project, we shifted to the topic of the Banquet. We discussed what food we will have and what to do for the Banquet program. The discussion went so smoothly that we finished the topic in just a few minutes. The Gizmos (the staff) allowed us to decide what we will do for our last Evening Program. Many of us had various wonderful ideas, but we could not decide on one idea, so we stopped talking about it as the time had run out. Last, but not at least, we talked about what we would do for ASL Night tomorrow!

“Juan Dillard and I are ready for the Banquet! You all will never forget the Banquet because it is going to be the greatest night!!” – Subrina Morales, Camper

We had a typical afternoon with OLS class, media hour, and another delicious dinner! After dinner, Joshua Beckman called us into Leadership Hall for a brief meeting. Joshua announced that something horrendous had happened—someone had the guts to steal a whole package of candies from the canteen. Confusion overwhelmed us as Joshua jumped to conclusions and decided to accuse us of stealing the candy even though they did not have any evidence that a camper committed the crime. Suddenly Cesar Ayala entered the building with a wrecked looking face. He approached Joshua and cried, “Blair's dead!”

That was the beginning of the Evening Program, MYSTERY NIGHT! We were to divide into our teams and solve two cases, which are the theft of the candies and the murder of Blair Rasmus. All of us had to find out who were the suspects and interview them to discover who were the thief and murderer. Also we had to figure out how the thief broke into the canteen, when the murderer killed Blair, and what weapon the murderer used to kill Blair. All of us really enjoyed the activity as we attempted to solve the crimes. All four teams had to produce a final report and give the report to Detective Adam Jarashow. Most of us tried our best to guess, but Evermore did an excellent job by being the only team that accused two correct suspects. But everyone did wonderful, and congrats to all teams for trying their best and making it through the night!

For our fireside tonight we had two awesome speakers, two proud Kendall Green Alumni: Joshua Weinstock and Jonathan Kessel!

Fireside started with Joshua Weinstock, who shared his childhood experience. Joshua began to like writing and reading in high school. He attained the position as a graduation speaker by admitting his essay to a panel of judges who will pick two top essay writers and assign them to become the graduation speakers. In the end Joshua got the opportunity to give his speech at his graduation, Model Secondary School for the Deaf. Joshua also explained his experience as a camper in YLC in 2003. He enjoyed YLC so much that he came back as a staff and we are grateful that we have him as our staff!

The second speaker, Jonathan Kessel began his story with a question. He asked us if we thought that he comes from a deaf family and the most of us answered ‘yes’. Jonathan chuckled at our assumption and revealed the shocking fact—he is the ONLY deaf person in his entire family! It was so hard to believe because his essence seemed to belong to someone who had a strong deaf family. Jonathan explained that he had lived in District of Columbia for his whole life. Jonathan shared his experience about his first year working at YLC as a counselor. He wrapped up his speech by announcing his plans for next year. He is joining a group of few friends to go through the Appalachian Trail, which begins in Georgia and ends in Maine. It will be a six month journey for Jonathan and his friends. His presence was clearly of a person who loves outdoors. We bid him good luck!

“I can’t imagine how YLC will end, this entire month is truly amazing and indescribable. I will cry and be devastated on the last day.” – Dan Mabashov, Camper

The campers listen as Yolynn Valdez expresses her thoughts during group process.

R.I.P. Blair Rasmus!

Dana Hill and Martha Wolcott pondering about the mystery they have to solve.

Mike Hesser explaining who he thinks the murderer was.

The Callus team questioning a suspect while Jay Werner takes notes.

Valerie Farr, you look confused, have you figured it out yet??

Suspect Lauren Sanchez smiles for the camera!

Nha Kim going over her team's notes from their interviews with the suspects.

Bethany Weiner and Jennifer Wrenn watch as their teammate explains who he thinks committed the crime.

Joshua Weinstock at fireside explaining about his childhood.

Jonathan Kessel describing his first YLC staff experience in 2006!

The campfire weakened and is left with red hot burning logs. Callus dumped water on it and the red hot flames sent out a huge trail of smoke up in the air. We all skipped to Leadership Hall for the typical announcements and gathered together as we screamed, “YLC ’09 GOOD NIGHT!”

A Delicious Day!

Today is our second laundry day! We were divided into two groups (Pixels and Firefly & Callus and Evermore) and went to two different laundry places in Salem. While we were washing our clothes we played card games, did some reading, watched television, talked with each other and made several stops to a Mexican restaurant to get some horchata (delicious drink!). When we all were done with washing our clothes, we went to the mall nearby!

We all were thrilled to go to the mall because we like to go out! Many of us bought some stuff such as clothes, candies and several things. We didn’t just go to the mall; there was a Target across from the mall, so some of us went there for some shopping. Several of us were unable to resist getting burritos from chipotle, ice cream from coldstone, and coffee from starbucks!

Today was also our picture day! We were all excited to pose for different pictures! First of all, we all were split in our teams and then we decided our own poses for those pictures. After taking team pictures, we all were split in our cabin groups and then took pictures with our cabins. Last but not least, we all sat together for the big group picture!

After we finished our photo shoot, we cooled down by doing some discovery games. Our first discovery activity was the “Seesaw”. All of us have to balance on a platform that is set up like a seesaw and our goal is to bring everyone from one side to the opposite side. The tricky part is that the seesaw sides have to be equal (meaning the length of the board on one side must be equal to the length of the board on the other side) and we are not allowed to let the wooden board touch the floor or we will have to redo everything! In case you were wondering, yes, we, the Evermore team did it! Our next activity was “The Wall.” The goal of the activity is to get every camper in our group to climb over a 15-feet wall! Of course, it wasn’t easy, but we also made it on that one!

We bet you're all wondering why the title of this blog is "A Delicious Day," right? For our evening program, we got to play “Top Dessert Mania” created by our chef, Matt Krueger! The game was set up so that each team had supplies to make a dessert (such as knives, bowls, etc). There was one table with different ingredients such as marshmallows, peanut butter, cherry pie filling, gumdrops, and more! Each team had one representative who would spin an arrow on a game board, depending on where the arrow lands that team would be able to choose their own ingredient or another group would be able to choose the ingredient for them! Each group had to create a dessert with those ingredients plus a secret ingredient that would not be announced until all the other ingredients were divided up among the groups. We really enjoyed that activity because it was full of delicious-looking desserts! We still haven’t found out who won the competition, we will find out tomorrow night. Also, we were the first group in YLC history to play that game! We are proud to be part of that history and because it was a hit, it will become a new tradition!

”It was really cool to have that program to see how well our minds work,” -Asia Riedinger

Guess who were our speakers for fireside tonight? If you have guessed Jennifer Spensieri and Lauren Sanchez, then you are right! Jennifer shared us a story about how her mother, from Peru, and father, from Argentina, moved to America and met each other. Then, Jennifer explained about her experience in school, having a cochlear implant and her experience losing her best friend/roommate who died in a car accident recently. She wanted us to grab every opportunity in our lives, because it can be over in less than a minute.

Lauren presented to us about her life and experiences in Cuba and Spain. She also explained us about how she was frustrated with languages because she grew up using oral language and had to learn sign languages in Spain, and then learn ASL in America. She emphasized to us that we should grab any chance to travel to other countries during the summer, or we might end up not having time to after we graduate college.

Jennifer Wrenn is thrilled to have a clean sleeping bag!

"Should I wash this one with my colors or whites?" asks Dakota Johndrow

Tiffany Hill and Anthony Finocchio reading while waiting for their laundry dry.

Dan Mabashov, Bethany Weiner, Bianca Hamilton, and Juan Dillard posing for a great picture!

Jordan Ramser enjoying his lunch at the mall's food court!

Robb Ingram giving his opinion on the outfit Ashley Bergeron is thining about buying.

That ice cream looks good, Patti!

Subrina Morales enjoying a great Starbucks drink!

Shari McMahon and Jay Werner goofin' off at the food court!

Blair Rasmus watches as team Firefly does the Alligator boards activity.

Greg Beattie watches the Pixels pull each other over the 15 foot wall!

Samantha Krieger times the Evermore team doing the seesaw activity.

The Callus team working on the spider web activity!

Some of the delicious deserts during Top Desert Mania!

The campers huddled around the ingredients to see what they might want during the game!

Matt Krueger explaining the rules to the team representatives.

Shu Han Guo helping her team make the dessert.

The fireflies creating a delicious cake for the judges!

The Pixels' scrumptious entry!

The Callus team's delicious entry!

Dana Hill waiting to present her group's entry to the judges on stage!

Jennifer Spensieri explaining that the campers should grab every opportunity they can get!

Lauren Sanchez shared her worldly knowledge with the campers during fireside!

Oh, you have been curious what the secret ingredient was? Vanilla Donuts!

After a long, delicious day, Jennifer Yost Ortiz led the YLC '09 GOOD NIGHT! tradition. It was her last night to be here with us, she is going home to Maryland! We miss her already and we really appreciate all that she has done for us!