About
Overview
Abiding Youth Camp is a non-profit organization based in San Diego, California, that provides engaging, day and multi-day youth camps for the purpose of promoting positive change in the lives of young people. Our mission is to see transformation by providing camps where adolescents, with an emphasis on inner-city youth, can experience life-changing connections, discover vision, and can enjoy epic team-building adventures that will have beneficial life-long effects.
We believe that by reaching the youth at a young age, we can help encourage them to make positive life decisions and avoid harmful snares. Our desire is to see youth learn to be successful by offering programs that have a strong emphasis on giving back to the world and promote compassion, kindness, strength and high ethical and moral standards.
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Seeing young people believe this is a beautiful thing. These summer youth camps have set the course and vision for so many young people’s lives. We believe that each person has a specific calling on his/her life. We desire to help youth discover what that calling is and set them on a positive pathway from adolescence. We have hundreds of testimonials of kids that really had little-to-no vision, that couldn't find what they were passionate about, or that were already charted out for a life in gangs, but because of the positive impact our programs have had on their lives, they have discovered their true passions and now live healthy and blessed lives.
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Objectives
We believe in inspiring hope and vision in the life of every young person regardless of economic circumstance. Abiding Youth Camp provides youth camps for adolescents, especially those from inner-city, high risk communities and young adults. Our objectives are to provide youth camps and youth programs to accomplish the following:
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Develop today’s youth to be successful leaders of tomorrow.
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Reveal value and purpose in the life of every young person
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Provide full sponsorships for underprivileged youth
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Reach high-risk youth before they enter into a life of gangs, drugs and crime
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Teach sound biblical principles
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Model Christ-like love and compassion to every individual
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Help enrich and improve the future of youth
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Provide a place of healing for youth that have experienced hardships
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Encourage the building of healthy relationships
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Host other youth organizations and sports teams
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Develop weekend and after school programs in the inner-city that bridge youth to camp
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Provide a camp for church youth groups of all sizes
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Provide an unforgettably fun camp experience
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Our Property
The campgrounds themselves are located on a 427-acre property in Campo, Ca. The grounds are shared with a fully functioning sustainable agriculture ranch that raises livestock and grows produce. Camp-goers will experience up-close encounters with livestock and eat of the produce during meals. It's a great opportunity for young people to learn valuable lessons about the basic essentials of life and sustainable food production.
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Our History
We have been providing positive programs to the youth of San Diego since 1996 under the banner of San Diego Youth Development Center. Thousands of San Diego adolescents have enjoyed a multitude of instructional outdoor activities designed to aid them in living a successful life. Over the years we have provided day camps in many of the high-risk communities of San Diego and have seen positive results as well as life changing decisions made by many young people.
In 2012, we began providing multi-day summer camps at a private ranch in Oregon, owned by some of the Abiding Youth Camp's founders. The camps involved youth from local churches and had an emphasis on training for world missions and reaching disadvantaged communities throughout the world. We taught the basics of sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, and animal husbandry. Since that time, a number of youth have spent time overseas as full-time missionaries, working in some of the least-reached countries of the world.
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In 2019, our parent organization, Abiding Place Ministries purchased a property in Campo, Ca for the purpose of developing systems to create sustainable orphanages and sustainable food sources worldwide, as well as to have a location to build and host youth camps in San Diego County. At the end of Summer 2019, we hosted our first youth camp on the property in Campo, Ca.
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