Enkindled Spirits: Taylor Eldridge

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Since the summer she spent on the sand dunes of Miniwanca in 2013, Taylor Eldridge has become an investigative journalist who has written award-winning work focusing on criminal justice. As a Girls Camp cabin leader, Taylor immediately connected with campers and staff as an inspiring counselor. Today, Taylor uses her voice and her writing to shine a light on injustice in the prison system and health care deficiencies.

Taylor’s path to Miniwanca was a sudden detour after a chance meeting with then Girls Camp Director Liz Marshall at a Yale alumni reunion. She expressed an interest in working with youth, and just a few weeks later, Taylor arrived at Miniwanca ready to lead campers in a summer of exploration and growth.

Taylor honed her investigative reporting skills at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She was awarded a fellowship at the prestigious Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. There, Taylor wrote articles exposing abuses in the prison system. Her work in partnership with WNYC on the use of solitary confinement for teenagers won the 2019 Alfred I. duPont- Columbia Award.

The following year, Taylor was awarded an Ida B. Wells Fellowship with Type Investigations, where she wrote extensively on prison health care. Her article, “Why Prisoners Get the Doctors No One Else Wants,” was a 2020 Livingston Award finalist. Using her voice to amplify and share untold stories is how Taylor lives the AYF mission.