About
BYM Camps is a family of four summer camp programs where campers take part in hiking, canoeing, rock climbing, organic farming, creative arts, group games, group work, cooking, and wilderness adventures. The camps also include Fire Circle and Quaker Meeting for Worship as part of daily life and community time.
• Ages: 9–17 years old
BYM Camps is operated and stewarded by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The four programs, Catoctin, Opequon, Shiloh, and Teen Adventure, are gender-inclusive summer camps and communities where community members are supported to be in housing and social groupings that most align with their gender identity. The Fire Circle is described as a sacred space and the center of spiritual and communal life, and campers spend 10–20 minutes each day in reflective stillness there, modeled off of and often referred to as Quaker Meeting for Worship.
The mission of BYM Camps is to build a vibrant, diverse, and youth-centered community that welcomes all with open arms, nurtures campers’ ability to both find themselves and be themselves, creates opportunities for campers to step into community leadership, and cultivates life-long connections to wild spaces and to each other. The camps state a commitment to incorporating principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) into every aspect of the program and to teaching and practicing the principles of Leave No Trace at camp and on wilderness adventures. Construction and land management decisions are made with sustainability, stewardship, and restoration at their core, and the new bathhouse at Catoctin is highlighted as an example of these values made visible and tangible.
Food is described as a central part of BYM Camps and another way camp values are expressed, and the camps regularly accommodate a variety of dietary needs, including omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free diets, and various allergies. The camps state that the Quaker value of honoring the divine in every person guides them to build the environment together with campers and staff, centering voices and lived experiences that have been historically marginalized. Their stated commitments include recruiting a genuinely diverse staff that is committed to JEDI values, recruiting a genuinely diverse camper population that represents a broad range of lived experiences, and investing in partnerships with youth-facing organizations throughout the mid-Atlantic region that share similar values around youth empowerment and experiential education.
The Camp Property Manager is David Hunter ([email protected]). One camp parent reports, “My daughter glows when she talks about her time at camp. She confirms what we’ve heard from a number of others, that the camp provides a very special place for growth, learning, self expression, and friendships.”
Last updated July 20, 2026.
• Ages: 9–17 years old
BYM Camps is operated and stewarded by the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The four programs, Catoctin, Opequon, Shiloh, and Teen Adventure, are gender-inclusive summer camps and communities where community members are supported to be in housing and social groupings that most align with their gender identity. The Fire Circle is described as a sacred space and the center of spiritual and communal life, and campers spend 10–20 minutes each day in reflective stillness there, modeled off of and often referred to as Quaker Meeting for Worship.
The mission of BYM Camps is to build a vibrant, diverse, and youth-centered community that welcomes all with open arms, nurtures campers’ ability to both find themselves and be themselves, creates opportunities for campers to step into community leadership, and cultivates life-long connections to wild spaces and to each other. The camps state a commitment to incorporating principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) into every aspect of the program and to teaching and practicing the principles of Leave No Trace at camp and on wilderness adventures. Construction and land management decisions are made with sustainability, stewardship, and restoration at their core, and the new bathhouse at Catoctin is highlighted as an example of these values made visible and tangible.
Food is described as a central part of BYM Camps and another way camp values are expressed, and the camps regularly accommodate a variety of dietary needs, including omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free diets, and various allergies. The camps state that the Quaker value of honoring the divine in every person guides them to build the environment together with campers and staff, centering voices and lived experiences that have been historically marginalized. Their stated commitments include recruiting a genuinely diverse staff that is committed to JEDI values, recruiting a genuinely diverse camper population that represents a broad range of lived experiences, and investing in partnerships with youth-facing organizations throughout the mid-Atlantic region that share similar values around youth empowerment and experiential education.
The Camp Property Manager is David Hunter ([email protected]). One camp parent reports, “My daughter glows when she talks about her time at camp. She confirms what we’ve heard from a number of others, that the camp provides a very special place for growth, learning, self expression, and friendships.”
Last updated July 20, 2026.
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