NYC Friends at New York Yearly Meeting Summer Sessions 2026

About eighty Quakers from New York City attended the recent Summer Sessions gathering of New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM). NYYM includes the Quaker meetings and Friends in New York State and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. Each summer NYYM holds a gathering for business, spiritual strengthening, and fellowship. Gloria Thompson, of Manhattan Meeting, serves as NYYM Clerk. 

This year, after several years at Oakwood Friends School and online, Summer Sessions returned to gather at the beautiful Silver Bay YMCA campus on Lake George. More than four hundred Friends participated in person.

Discussion of anti-racism was woven throughout the week, starting with Monday’s plenary session, “Needle and Thread: How Context Saves Lives and Mends Community.” Tuesday’s meetings for discernment (extended meetings for worship on a specific query) focused on racism within the yearly meeting. At business meetings the yearly meeting continued a multi-year discernment process about signing onto a statement declaring genocide in Gaza. These sessions were difficult and emotionally heavy. Spirits were fortified by worshipping, playing, singing, and talking with Friends in community — connecting us and carrying us through difficult moments of discernment.

Some memories of NYC Friends at Summer Sessions:

• Two children from Brooklyn demonstrated their soccer skills on stage during the Café Night talent show
• Young adult Friends took kayaks, canoes, and paddle boards to the center of the bay and held a meeting for worship on the water 
• A wise Fifteenth Street Meeting Friend served as a “whisper buddy” to answer questions from a Brooklyn Meeting Friend during business meetings
• A Flushing Friend and a Brooklyn Friend, part of the NYYM Delegation to Palestine/Israel, presented their upcoming journey to the yearly meeting
• We experienced a yellow overcast day due to the Canadian wildfires, and gathered in a conference room to watch two World Cup finals games
• A New York Quarterly Meeting staff member gathered all the NYC Friends she could find for a group photo on the Inn porch Friday afternoon; see below

Do you have memories or photos from Summer Sessions you’d like to share? Please send them to me at sarah@nycquakers.org.