Ten summers, one cyan bus and a simple idea: kids should come home tired, a little muddy and talking nonstop.
In 2016 we bought a retired school bus, painted it the brightest cyan we could find and drove twelve kids to the lake. By August the waiting list was longer than the bus.
The name came from those first mornings. Every time the doors folded open, the counselors shouted “Yala!” (come on, let's go) and the whole bus shouted it back. It stuck, and so did we.
Today Camp Yala runs three two-week sessions on forty acres of woods and shoreline at Pine Ridge. The bus still runs every morning. It just has company now.
Grab a seatGive every kid a summer they're still telling stories about in September, with grown-ups who keep them safe and let them be loud.
Every counselor is background-checked, first-aid and CPR certified, and trained on site for a full week before the first bus rolls in.
Camp director
Fun fact: has driven the cyan bus more than 40,000 miles.
Waterfront lead
Fun fact: can balance a canoe paddle on his chin for a full minute.
Arts director
Fun fact: painted the bus shed mural with 300 campers' handprints.
Stage + drama
Fun fact: knows every line of every camp skit since 2018.
Trails + nature
Fun fact: has named every squirrel on the pine trail.
Camp nurse
Fun fact: keeps an emergency stash of freeze pops for scraped knees.
Seats on the bus fill up by spring. Save your camper's spot in about five minutes.