The Youth and Government club, which is funded by the YMCA, traveled to Camp Roberts in San Luis Obispo County for a retreat from November 8 to 10.
The purpose of the trip was club members to participate in an intensive preparation for their later simulation of state legislative bodies.
“The delegation in this area is Diablo Valley, what we do is we go to Sacramento and pretend to be senators and lawyers. We have to be the government for a weekend,” explained the Diablo Valley delegation student president, senior Emily Fong.
During the trip, students practiced basic legislative procedures. “We found out about the positions [in the model government] we can have and we got in groups to make bills,” explained freshman Abby Morris.
Freshman Sophia Aquil explained, “[I was placed in] a group of freshmen and we listened to a lot of speeches.”
Though the Camp Roberts accommodations are old army barracks, the club members enjoyed their time there. “The barracks where we had to stay were not the best and the showers, I didn’t want to go in them, and there were also tarantulas that were really big,” Morris said. “[I did enjoy] meeting new people and getting to know people I already knew,” explained Morris.
According to Morris, there were around 3,000 students who participated from Bay Area schools such as Miramonte and Acalanes.