We celebrate the boy’s feeling relationships to family, community, and society, assisting a boy in learning to decipher his own feelings and those of others. We provide feeling mentors who model emotional literacy, normalizing men having feelings, showing boys how that looks and feels.

We invite the boy to self-reflect, looking at what may not be working in his life; something that he is ready to let go of. We celebrate what is working in his life.

We discuss bullying, and its individual parts: the aggressor, the target, the by-stander, and the ally; providing options. Not only do we talk about this, mentors model it by providing “healthy emotional foods”: empathy, honesty, justice, fairness, caring, concern, fairness, adaptability, and adventure. As mentors we avoid toxic “emotional foods” such as hypocrisy, cheating, severity & authoritarianism. The boys list the qualities of a good friend (loyal, fun, respectful, got your back, kind, wild, crazy, safe, trustworthy…) and we all agree to treat each other in this way on the weekend.

We contemplate the continuum of life and what it means to become a man by asking staff men of different ages (often 13 to 85 years old) to represent “What is it like for them to be a man at that age?” This sparks a reflection in the boy regarding what kind of man he wants to be.

If we get it right, you ask a “Young Raven” what the weekend was like for him, the first thing he will say is he had a LOT of fun, secondarily describing things he learned! Play, trust and fun are all important ingredients and a powerful language for learning.

One boy recently said, “I decided on the weekend that I didn’t like being shy any more, so I decided to change.” This conversation came up several weeks after the weekend when the mentors noticed the boy no longer covered his face with his hat. He now spoke up and looked others in the eyes; eyes which were bright and no longer apologizing for the awesome boy that he is. Parents/guardians often say their boy is happier, more connected to his and to other’s feelings, and grounded in himself.

Alex, a father who staffed a weekend his son participated on said: “Where to begin... this is everything I've ever prayed for in both my life and the life of my son... I feel whole and new again when I'm in the presence of Ravens young and old.” The weekend is a powerful father/son, or uncle (or family member)/son, or mentor/son weekend if there is a man who would like to staff with a boy on the weekend. It’s not necessary as all boys are assigned a “weekend buddy”.

Brian, a mentor recently said “It's amazing to me how the weekend builds upon itself as it progresses, how the boys open up, go deeper, sink into it...and how the men, esp. the new ones who don't know what to expect, are so moved by the cumulative effects of it all. It's like each man, driving home Sunday, in his own way, his own words, realizes in the afternoon sunlight, ‘Wow we really can make a change in this world’. That  is a very deep and meaningful thing!”