On a drive home from the movies, Jessica and Kayla Weissbuch came up with an idea: Combining summer camp and development for LGBTQ+ youth. A series of conversations followed -- together and with friends -- that led to the creation of Brave Trails. The nonprofit is working to build a generation of LGBTQ+ changemakers through summer camps and programs that stretch throughout the year. 

The organization is a 1% for the Planet* Environmental Partner and was recently featured as an LGBTQIA-led organization rooted in inclusion and advocacy.

Giving Compass recently spoke with Jessica to learn more about Brave Trails and how donors can help. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q: Tell us about the origin of Brave Trails and what you’re working on right now.

My wife and I founded Brave Trails back in 2016, and it really grew out of the love of both of our passions. My wife grew up going to summer camps from the age of eight to 18. It was this really safe, amazing space for her that she just thrived in and loved. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I was working on queer youth leadership. We met each other doing exactly that. 

We did this on nights and weekends. Just started putting together our first summer camp. We got 45 kids that first summer for one week and it was magical. We combined leadership aspects with the traditional summer camp. It's a traditional summer camp in that we have archery, hiking, and swimming. The Leadership Institute is where we bring in folks from the community to do different leadership activities and workshops, as well as community service.

Today, we have four 10-day sessions here in Southern California and one 10-day session on the East Coast. We have year-round programs now. We have our amazing family camp. We have a year-round program in what we call Brave Space, which includes museums and beach and pool parties as well as virtual leadership workshops. We also have a full comprehensive mental health program. Lastly, we just purchased a property, so we're in the midst of a really big capital campaign to renovate the whole thing. We just broke ground on our first building, which is really amazing and exciting.

Q: Brave Trails is focused on building the next generation of LGBTQ+ changemakers. Tell me how you’re using nature/outdoor experiences in your approach.

We are in the second summer of our backpacking program. We're getting kids out into nature and wilderness. They are getting not only robust camp experiences but also nature experiences. We’re teaching them how to backpack and how to do it in the right way, ethically and sustainably. So that is a huge component of what we do, as well as some of our outdoor workshops and our outdoor education.

Q: Tell me how you’re weaving mental health services into your work? What outcomes have you seen?

Mental health has always been a huge part of what we do. As we were developing Brave Trails, we really saw a gap in services. Just by being at camp, it's innately therapeutic. What we do has always been based in identity and therapeutic practices and restorative justice. Then we saw the need for it to be more explicit and more year-round. That is why we developed the full year round comprehensive mental health program. 

Q: What efforts are you most proud of? 

There are a few things that I'm really proud of. One of them is our Passion to Action program, which is our all-camp leadership program. It takes who our youth are and what they're passionate about and creates a service project around it, creating a story of why it's important to them – and then bringing that back into their own communities.

My wife, Kayla, came from a single-parent household and did not have a lot of disposable income so she needed financial aid and scholarships to be able to attend camp, which she did. It's been life-changing for her. As we were developing, one of the biggest things for us was to never have to turn down a camper because they couldn’t pay. We've grown our scholarship program to over $100,000 awarded every single summer.

Q: What are your biggest challenges? 

There's a lot of anti-LGBT things happening, a lot of policy, a lot of really horrible things throughout the country. It's hard to create and give these youth a space where they feel safe and then they have to go back to their communities where it might be a little less safe and into states that don't support them and that actively block who they are.

Q: What advice would you give donors who are interested in supporting LGBTQ+ youth?

Really get to know the organizations and help co-create stories, the real stories that these youth are going through. Bring those to light. The financial aspect of everything is important -- we need that to operate and to make these amazing experiences for our campers. But I know for me, the donors and the sponsors that I work with the most are the ones that are true partners with us.

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*1% for the Planet is a global organization that exists to ensure our planet and future generations thrive. It acts as an accountability partner for businesses supporting environmental partners through annual membership. 1% for the Planet makes environmental giving easy and effective through partnership advising, impact storytelling, and third-party certification.