Anytown alumni just raised $25K for Anytown

June 30, 2022
Category: Anytown
Tags: Anytown, Anytown Alumni, Community-Building, Diversity, Inclusion, Respect, Self-Care, Youth Leadership,

On June 1, a group of Anytown alumni kicked off the 2022 #AnytownEnergyCheck peer-to-peer campaign with a goal of raising $25,000 – which is enough to fully fund 20 Anytown scholarships.

Thanks over 200 people who answered the call and made donations to the 2022 Anytown Energy Check, they met their goal.

These gifts are directly impacting young leaders here in our community.

Last week at this summer’s June session of Anytown, this diverse group of teens came together to create an inclusive family.

Everyone had the opportunity to ask questions, share stories about their experiences, and compare perspectives on topics like race, gender, faith, sexual orientation, and more.

They practiced having respectful discussions about divisive issues, finding common ground and celebrating differences. They learned from each other and talked about ways to uplift and support each other after Anytown, as they go back into their home and school communities.

Watch this video for highlights from their week at camp.

Some of these friendships will last a lifetime.

The ideas we communicated and the experiences and perspectives we shared will reverberate throughout our community.

That’s because the empathy and compassion we nurtured affect how each of these students thinks about themselves, and each other. In big and small ways, it will change how they interact with their peers as they go back to school.

As past NCCJ executive director Steve Simpson always said to students at the end of each Anytown:

“Each of you is like a pebble. You may feel small, but when you’re cast into the water you’ll make big ripples that eventually reach the shore.”

About the Anytown Energy Check

The Anytown Energy Check is a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign run by Anytowners, for Anytown.

Through this campaign, Anytown alumni can pay the Anytown experience forward and helping to sustain this powerful NCCJ youth program that gives teens a space to be themselves, build self-confidence and resilience, and build empathy by forging genuine connections and friendships with other teens of all identities and backgrounds.

Since the first Anytown Energy Check campaign in the summer of 2016, Anytown alumni have raised more than $145,000. That’s 120 full Anytown scholarships!

We at NCCJ are deeply grateful to everyone who fundraised, everyone who donated, everyone who shared and “liked” a post about this crowdfunding campaign.

You can lean more about Anytown here.

You can make a gift to invest in Anytown here.