Winter Student Retreat

January 2009 @ Camp de Benneville Pines

The LGBT Resource Center invites UCR undergraduate and graduate students to our winter Retreat. Over three days in January, you will make new friends, build community, experience personal growth, explore leadership opportunities and get energized for Winter and Spring campus activities.

The Winter Student Retreat brings UCR students together for "Community Building Through a Social Justice Lens." We will explore what brings us together within the LGBT community, as well as how our different experiences and identities create spaces for ally-building and activism.

Selected participants will need to complete a Liability Waiver and Emergency Contact forms. This Retreat is FREE for UCR students. However, participants must provide a $50 deposit that will be returned once everyone's on the bus to the camp.

FYI
  • Camp de Benneville Pines is in the San Bernardino Mountains.
  • The bus will leave Friday afternoon at 3:00pm and return Sunday afternoon. All participants must take this bus to and from camp.
  • Saturday night features a Talent Show and Dance, so come prepared with props and music. A piano is on-site.
  • All meals and snacks provided, including vegetarian and vegan options.
  • Cabins include hot showers and bunkbeds with comfortable mattresses.
  • No alcohol or drugs at the camp!

What students have to say about the Winter Student Retreat:
  • This one time at gay camp... I met people from varying backgrounds and I felt that I had a space where I can open my heart and mind to new ideas and contemplate on self improvement and self discovery.
  • A liberating experience and mind-opening in more ways that one can imagine. I will recommend all students I know to participate!!
  • It was a relaxing and enjoyable retreat. There was a lot learned and a lot that sunk in. Getting to know the other camp retreat buddies was a good experience as well.
  • The retreat is a chance to explore the many aspects of a queer (LGBTQQI) identity on individual and community level. It’s fun, safe, challenging and above all else, important stuff.
  • You learn many things…get closer to people you barely know or rarely associate with…learn how to bust out of your safety zone.
  • I think that the retreat is an amazingly beneficial experience both in its bonding and understanding as well as in the intense moments of separation and silence. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
  • Liberating. Worth every minute, you will make awesome friendships with people you never thought you would have.
  • The retreat was a safe place to explore oneself and to better understand the life experiences of those around you. It allowed me to be my true self and to express myself as I think I should and not as I think society thinks I should.
  • It is one of the best experiences of my life. I realized that these people genuinely cared for me and that others feel the way I do.
  • It was a wonderful experience full of words, entertainment, and different personalities. It was a fusion of colors, sexualities, gender.
  • Awesome possum. You will laugh and cry and learn a lot.
  • Self-identity is something we all think we know, but the reality is that we tend not to explore this topic. This retreat has been absolutely crucial for me to understand who I am and understand all the different shades of gray we are individually.
  • Wonderful experience that opens up your perception of events facing LGBT people today.
  • Encouraging… I loved meeting and getting to know staff and faculty, and building relationships and strong bonds that will hopefully last and become stronger.
  • An incredible opportunity to know yourself and your community better.
  • Intense, provocative, inspiring.
  • Positive chance to meet new people, learn new ideas and explore myself/yourself.
History

UCR students attended an intercampus retreat in March 2001 with USC, Cal Poly Pomona, Riverside Community College, and Cal State San Bernardino. USC generously invited other campuses to be part of their tradition, "Generation Q." In January 2002, UCR began our own tradition with our first "snow camp" retreat.