What a beautiful day it has been at Miniwanca! Our campers started off this golden day with some Waterfront Fun (with a light swim assessment) down at Stony Lake and...

This Sunday morning Girls Camp gathered together for one of our more special traditions: Something Sacred. Something Sacred is a way in which Miniwanca experiences our R (religious) Fold. Through...

Yesterday ended our first week of camp, and it was both a sad and very happy day. The morning brought sadness as we said goodbye to our one week campers,...

The morning dawned crisp and clear today as the sun rose over Stony Lake. Our early morning Polar Bears headed down to Lake Michigan to take the first plunge of...

Greetings from Girls Camp! Yesterday was another wonderful day, full of action and fun. The day started off with a bang when our campers found out what tribe they are...

We are so excited to welcome campers back to Miniwanca! Since August 5th of 2016, Girls Camp has been quietly waiting for this very day, when hundreds of campers joined...

On Sunday, April 30th, old and new friends of the AYF community gathered for dinner to kick off the 16th Annual Donald Danforth Jr. Memorial Dinner Auction & Golf Tournament....

By Carrie Kennedy, MEd A few years ago, I was introduced to Joe Maroon at an art opening. Being from Pittsburgh, I knew he was a neurosurgeon and a team...

We love talking about summer camp all year long! The first signs of spring are starting to show at Merrowvista and Miniwanca, so although it’s probably not quite time to...

If you are connected to the American Youth Foundation in some way, it is likely you received a copy of the Founder Fire recently. In the Founder Fire, you can...

As we ring in the new year, many people look for ways to answer some version of the question, ‘how can I be at my (own very) best, (all the...

With the holiday season upon us, the AYF has so much gratitude for all of the ways in which the members of our community make a positive impact in our...

By Kris Light Every campfire has a purpose. It has been an essential part of our story as a species; a thing that once adopted helped define what it meant...

By Anthony Marvullo This past January, Professor Carol Dweck saw her scholarly work get away from her, so she wrote a clarification in the Harvard Business Review. Her now-famous “growth-mindset...

By Will Shelton A few days ago, we stumbled across this article, and I was very eager to read it. We love to have teens as part of our camps...

In mid-August, the year-round summer camp teams at Merrowvista and Miniwanca each shared in countless hugs, tidied up, and waved as several hundred summer staff drove away with another incredible...

We want to hear from you! If you have experienced an AYF program, directly or indirectly, we invite you to complete this survey in order to inform AYF’s programming and planning....

By Anthony Marvullo Recent conversations on youth development and student success focus on resilience, sometimes called grit. In Paul Tough’s 2012 book How Children Succeed, resilience is defined as the...