For Chelsea Banteah, the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project’s Summer Camp isn’t just a seasonal tradition — it’s part of her family’s story. Fifteen years after she served as a teen counselor, her 7-year-old daughter, Robyn, is preparing for her second summer in the beloved program.
ZYEP will be launching its pre-camp Wellness Week on Monday, June 23, with the 17th Annual Summer Camp opener scheduled for Monday, June 30. Across the Pueblo of Zuni, children ages 7-12 are eagerly anticipating all the fun, friendships and new experiences that await them.
Chelsea first served as a counselor in 2010. That was Summer Camp’s second season, and in those days, roughly 20 children gathered in the old Twin Buttes school yard (now the Zuni Cultural Resource and Education Center) with a handful of counselors.
“It was a little program,” Chelsea remembers. “I was 16 going on 17. ZYEP’s Summer Camp was one of our first camps in Zuni, and I wanted to be part of something that would effect change for the community.”
Chelsea thought she was a good candidate for the job, with a keen interest in teaching and a family filled with younger siblings. She says it was an outstanding experience, and she returned in summer 2011.
“It gave me a sense of accomplishment and pride,” she says. “We didn’t have programs like that when I was a kid. I felt grateful.”
Chelsea was born and raised in Zuni. Although she did live in Durango, Colorado, for a little while, she returned to the pueblo when she was in high school.
After her 2011 graduation, she attended college and also worked for the American Indian Graduate Center (a nonprofit organization now known as the Native Forward Scholars Fund). Chelsea says she ultimately found her place as a human resources specialist for the federal government, and she enjoys her work very much.
She also became a parent. Robyn, who will be 8 in September, is a rising third-grader at St. Anthony Indian School in Zuni. Chelsea says she tries to keep her daughter involved at ZYEP as much as possible.
“She loves ZYEP!” Chelsea says. “In addition to Summer Camp, she plays in the youth soccer league and participates in Running Medicine Zuni with me. We also do ZYEP’s food sovereignty initiative as a family. She loves being outside, all together.
“When I think of what ZYEP was back in 2010 and what it is today, oh gosh — I don’t even know how to describe it,” she continues. “No one could have imagined what it is today, and I get to see my own daughter be part of it.”
Summer Camp was a huge hit with Robyn when she attended last year. She loved the art activities and always came home excited, Chelsea says.
“She also loved building relationships with counselors she trusted and felt safe with, and meeting new friends,” she notes. “Her school is very small, so it helps her to have these different types of interactions. This is so important to me as a parent, and it makes me happy that our kids have all this.”
Chelsea says other benefits of the Summer Camp program are the many ways the ZYEP staff and counselors incorporate traditional Zuni culture, language and lifeways, and the emphasis they place on food sovereignty and good nutrition.
“We try to teach as much as we can at home, but ZYEP can add things we don’t know,” she explains. “The learning doesn’t stop with me! The staff is so knowledgeable about making healthier choices and the traditional ways of planting and growing.”
Many of those lessons are reinforced through the family-focused food sovereignty initiative. It provides access to resources, instruction and knowledge sharing to people of all ages and skill levels through ZYEP’s Agricultural Advisory Committee, and it brings community members together on a seasonal agricultural journey that incorporates prepping, planting, nurturing, harvesting, seed saving, healthy recipes and cooking.
“We started growing as a family three years ago,” Chelsea says. “My grandparents participate in our garden too! Grandpa waters and tells stories from his past, we plant, and we spend time outside together.”
Chelsea says Zuni is a very unique community, and she believes ZYEP is instrumental in building a strong foundation for the pueblo’s young people.
“It encourages us to embrace culture and teachings, connect to our roots, and love ourselves,” she explains. “That’s fundamental, because there are so many other influences out there in the world. I’m so thankful, because I don’t know where kids would be without it. For some of them, it’s their only safe space.”
Chelsea says it has been a pleasure to see her former campers grow into their adult lives, with degrees, careers and kids of their own.
“ZYEP was part of that, and these journeys keep unfolding,” she reflects. “Robyn says she wants to be a counselor herself when she’s older. So, the seed that was planted in me is now planted in her. That’s what we hope for. To plant seeds, and then pass them on.”
