Venturing

14-20 years old

Venturing is a youth-led program all about building adventures with friends while gaining leadership skills.

Venturing Crews

Our largest and longest running Venturing unit in Piedmont is the Piedmont Community Service Crew (PCSC), which helps teens find fun and impactful ways to serve their community. PCSC promotes teamwork, youth ownership, creativity, and personal initiative. We strive to undertake several significant service projects every year in which we teach youth new skills in addition to planning and managing a major project.

Past PCSC service projects include:

Building tiny houses for unhoused young adults
Planning, funding, and preparing meals for low-income seniors at St. Mary’s Center and at College Avenue Presbyterian Church for local hungry people
Tutoring underserved youth
Conducting conservation and environmental improvement projects
Undertaking home renovation projects for low income, elderly, or disabled Oakland residents
Traveling during holidays and summer breaks to do service work and bond as a team while engaging with other communities and cultures. The crew has traveled to other states including Oregon and New Orleans, Louisiana, and as far as Italy, Ethiopia, and India.

Our Venturing program includes the Piedmont Service Club which enables middle school aged kids (together with their parents) to join PCSC activities and do age-appropriate service work.

Contact Ken Li, Crew Advisor, to learn more.

High Adventure Crew

Want to go kayaking? Backpacking? Snow camping? Youth learn new skills and gain confidence on outings such as day hikes, camp-outs, and multi-day trips that require self-sufficiency in the wilderness.

Past outings include:

Contact Tess English, Scout Executive, to learn more.

“PCSC for me was service with friends. It was a unique environment—one that encouraged participation and community service while providing many opportunities to develop leadership skills, which are invaluable to me.”

"What I love about PCSC is that I’ve been able to make the experience my own. The more I’ve gotten involved, the more opportunities I’ve found to try new things, meet different people, and challenge myself. Along the way, I’ve gained skills and confidence that I know I’ll carry with me long after PCSC."

“PCSC is more than a place to do community service. I went from building houses to teaching others to build them, to directing what PCSC builds next as VP of Program. Each role pushed me outside my comfort zone—from partnering with community organizations to empowering others to lead. PCSC offers youth leadership at every level, making it easy to start and impossible to outgrow.”