Winter 2004 Trail Mix

Winter Youth Trip Reports: Bear Valley

On December 20th, 2003 the Loft (Larkin Opportunities For Transition) group home packed up and headed for the snow on a much anticipated weekend trip to Bear Valley. The Loft is a program of Larkin Street Youth Services, a San Francisco non profit agency that works with homeless and runaway youth.

Unlike other house outings where it was like pulling teeth to get youth out of bed everyone was up, packed and had good attitudes the morning that we left. We even left so early that we arrived at our rental house an hour before we were able to get in. We passed the time with an hour long snowball fight. Eventually, even the most reluctant youth were coaxed out of the vans and joined the fray. For most youth – this was the first time they had ever seen snow!

Eventually we settled into the house only to have the power go off throughout the area. While some staff took the youth sledding, other staff made a big fire and lit the large common area of the house with candles. Not having electricity was the best thing that could have happened that afternoon. When the youth returned, instead of doing the usual thing - watchingTV and listening to music- they read, played board games, and most importantly talked with each other and with staff all evening.

After passing a chili night without central heating we were up and out early for a beautiful 45 minute ride through fresh snow to the Bear Valley Ski Resort. The youth put on their BAWT snow gear and hit the slopes. Everyone had a great time and some serious snowboarders were born.

The next day we slept in, ate a big breakfast and packed lunches for the road. At our final wrap up group youth comments ranged from “I can’t believe 15 people shared 2 bathrooms and there were no fights!” to “when are we coming back” to thanking staff and each other “for all the fun”. Staff gave the youth lots and lots of positive feedback about how pleasant it had been to spend time with them over the weekend, outside of the normal routine in the house. It was a great weekend and we far exceeded our goals of community building and fostering closer relationships among Loft residents and staff.

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