Camp Hive 2023
This summer, the Hive ran its second annual Camp Hive: a five-week engaging and enriching summer program with high school students from the Pomona College Academy for Youth Success (PAYS) and Upward Bound (UB) programs. Both programs are in place to provide students from the Inland Empire with the tools to excel in college and later professional careers. They receive instruction in physics, mathematics, English, history, as well as guidance with time management and community building. Camp Hive’s role is to integrate a variety of activities that foster creativity, play, and wellness, to inform how these students navigate their future.
Upon joining camp this summer, students were greeted with a personalized touch, receiving custom journals, school materials, and pencil bags, which set the tone for a journey of learning and self-discovery. We started every session with a Buzz In, which was an activity to energize all of the students and put us on track for a vibrant start to the day. This was complemented by our end of session Buzz Out, where we reviewed what we did during the day and how it could be applied to life outside of the Hive. Throughout the duration of Camp Hive, students participated in a wide array of exciting activities structured around several compelling themes. Below is a snapshot of some highlight activities:
Poetry // Youth Leadership
This session empowered students to take charge, develop leadership skills, and make a positive impact while exploring the world of poetry and the history of underrepresented creative expression. We ended these sessions by creating group poems about what creative expression is missing in the popular sphere.
Dance & Music // Cultural Empowerment
Cultural empowerment took the spotlight, inviting participants to explore their cultural identities through lively sessions of expression playing Just Dance, singing karaoke, and freestyling in the Hive’s recording studio. This session encouraged self-expression, understanding, and appreciation of diverse cultures.
Prototyping Shade Equity // Responsibility & Accountability
Participants embraced innovation and problem-solving through a prototyping workshop. They tackled real-world challenges, interviewed, designed, and iterated on solutions, honing their creativity and critical thinking skills around the problem: How might we ensure equal access to shade across Los Angeles?
At the heart of Camp Hive was an incredible team that drove the program’s success. Led by the awesome director Linett, with support from Hunter, Zoë, Linda, Olivia, Madison, Asha, and myself, we all worked together to create a nurturing and supportive environment where students could flourish.
Camp Hive @ Home
At the end of the summer, we asked students to give us anonymous feedback on the impact and their favorite moments of attending Camp Hive. Some of my favorites were:
“I loved being silly and letting loose.”
“I discovered a love for creativity-inducing activities.”
“It’s important to have a drive to take care of your wellbeing.”
“I found new ways of expressing yourself and enjoying fun stuff.”
“I developed a love of making :)”
“I realized I have an ability to be creative in whatever I do!”
Sounds fun, right?! Rather than continue to talk about how much fun we had over the summer … Why don’t you join us? I want to give you the opportunity to participate in some of these activities in your free time.
36 Questions to Make Friends With a Stranger
This was our introductory core activity for the summer; it helps you get to know someone and express yourself by creating art with them.
📢 Materials needed: partner, pen, paper
With your partner
- Start by drawing a portrait of each other
- Then go back and forth drawing a portrait of your partner using the responses. You’re going to want to create a new portrait for each question/response. Do as many questions as you feel comfortable:
- When you meet someone, what do you notice first? … What do you hope people notice about you?
- Tell me about the last time you surprised yourself …
- What do you most value in a friendship?
- If someone was making an emergency kit to revive your spirit, what would it include?
- Who was the best teacher you had and why?
- What do you find beautiful that is usually overlooked?
- What does your phone wallpaper, profile picture, and/or your bedroom say about you?
- Once you are finished, enjoy the portraits that you made of one another
Community Wellness
This activity was designed to promote taking care of your and your friend’s community mental health. Alongside doing yoga and writing gratitude journals, we had students take a wellness survey. I want to encourage you to also take one and see what you learn. Go through this survey about wellness across different parts of your life (physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, emotional, relational, professional):
📢 While filling out the survey you can listen to the Camp Hive playlist, which we would play during journaling sessions.
Reflect on which areas in your life need more attention to wellness, and strategies you might use to improve your wellness score.
Anti Tie-Dye
This was arguably the most popular activity at Camp Hive this summer! Here we encouraged students to get creative and sustainable by upcycling their closet.
📢 Materials needed: two buckets, bleach, squirt and spray bottles, hydrogen peroxide, water, latex gloves, rubber bands, clothes to anti tie-dye!
- Find a piece of clothing, ideally one with a strong color
- Tie your piece of clothing with rubber bands. Remember that unlike tie-dye, the section that is exposed will have the color removed
- Use gloves and apply bleach with finesse
- When you are satisfied with the bleaching process stop the bleach by dunking in a bucket of hydrogen peroxide; then rinse the hydrogen peroxide and bleach in a bucket of water
- Let dry and wash out bleach
- Enjoy!
Below are some results from our class:
Buzz Out
I’ve been at The Claremont Colleges for five years at this point (including the pandemic). One of the primary reasons I chose to come to Pomona College and why I’ve put so much time and energy into its community is because of the potential that the Hive offers to those who walk through its doors.
It felt very full-circle to spend this final summer giving back to the next generation of students and guiding them to get closer to fulfilling their potential. In reviewing the feedback from students, it was refreshing to see the workshops were well-received and that we made a positive impact on their creative ability. One of the most touching moments the whole summer was at the end of the Music & Dance session when we did a gratitude circle. Most of the time when we do gratitude circles, only one or two students chime in. This time we had multiple students thanking each other for their bravery for dancing and freestyling. I was especially proud when one of these students, who had not spoken much the whole camp, was thanking everyone for being vulnerable and complimenting their talents! This taught me that through movement and artistic expression, we were able to empower even the quietest students to speak up and uplift each other. I’m excited to see how these students grow and where the Hive grows, as both continue to fulfill their potential and those around them.
Author
Brian “b.” Bishop is a recent Pomona College graduate. He worked at the Hive in his last two years as a student there. One of his biggest projects at the Hive was founding and developing We.IMININT and the SoundBox, a community of emerging artists, a semi-professional recording studio, and programing to support them. He also released an EP “This is b.” largely recorded and produced at the Hive. This was all done with incredible support from the Hive and many other amazing people. He is going on to pursue entrepreneurship and art under his social enterprise Didomi www.didomibottle.com and his artist persona “b.” https://thisisb.myportfolio.com/.
