Beach Outreach
ocean city, NJ
for ages 18-30
For the last 20 years, Generation Life has brought young adult volunteers down to the Jersey Shore for Beach Outreach. Our volunteers go out on mission twice a day, initiating
conversations about love, relationships, sexuality, and chastity. We start those conversations by asking the million dollar question – “What do you think love is?”
People REALLY open up to us. We get all kinds of answers–”Love is a feeling”, “love is being committed to someone”, “love is unconditional.” One girl responded with
something so simple, yet so profound- that love makes us more human. But not all of the
answers are as cheerful. Many young people respond, “I don’t know what love is” and some will even confess with total seriousness, “I don’t think love exists.”
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It’s an eye-opening experience. One time, two of our volunteers walked up to this group of high school girls. There was only one girl who seemed to be listening as our volunteers asked them about love. She had pain and curiosity in her eyes as she wondered what our volunteers had to say. Her friends were disinterested and immediately pulled her away to go ride on some of the boardwalk amusements. Our volunteers hoped that they could have found the girl again to finish the conversation and to hand her one of our “I’m Worth Waiting For” stickers. But the night went on and they had yet to run into her and her friends. The team of volunteers decided to come together in prayer and to ask God to bring the girl back to them if He really wanted her to hear the message. And sure enough as they finished their prayer, they turned around to see the girl right behind them. The team affirmed her goodness and dignity as she received their message with tears in her eyes.
Another time two of our staff members approached a group of high school boys. They seemed disinterested and could only think about love in the way it applied to their baseball team. So the Gen Life team gave them a sticker and continued on their way. About a half hour later, the team was passing by the friend group again. This time, a young man sprinted up to the team, saying “Hey, I heard you were talking about love and I wanna tell you what I think!” The team listened as he shared his story of a tough breakup at prom and then watched his eyes light up as we told him how much he deserves to be loved truly and sacrificially. His eagerness and excitement in even getting to have a conversation about love really touched our hearts. You could see how much he craved to be known and loved and how badly he wanted to believe that he was worth more.
For Generation Life, Beach Outreach really is the cherry on top of a successful school year. We look forward to it every year, the camaraderie, the conversations, and of course the beach. It really serves to illustrate, in a beautiful way, what Generation Life is all about, the hope inherent in our message to young people about chastity and being pro-life. Out on the beach, we get to talk to young people from all walks of life and have wildly different conversations. We find ourselves affirming healthy relationships and give them the language of chastity to help them understand what it is that makes their relationship healthy. Other times, we find an honest guy who has a one-night stand planned for that evening. As we talk to him about true love, you can watch his conflicting desires for base pleasure and sexual integrity play out in his face. And regardless of how the conversation turns out, each person gets that “I’m worth waiting for” sticker. Because, no matter what, that’s the truth.
In 2025, the conversation about chastity spread even further than the beaches and boardwalks of the Jersey Shore. Carter Sherman, from the Guardian, published an article in which she portrayed Generation Life and our mentality toward chastity as being driven out of fear. This article, posted on facebook, actually drew many comments support Generation Life and expressing disdain for The Guardian’s leftist agenda. As a result, the attempt to discredit our missionary work only managed to draw attention to the goodness and desirability of the chastity and pro life messages.“
We are not afraid,” responded Generation Life’s Executive Director Anthony Yetzer, “We simply care about the men and women around us: our brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, colleagues, and even strangers on the beach. And we would not have them sleepwalked into lives of emptiness because they were misled into believing that enslavement to the passions and using and being used is actually freedom and love. God has called us to so much more, the mastery of our passions and the pursuit of self-sacrificial love. And we want to give our generation the opportunity to do just that.”
INTERESTED? Sign-UP Now
Please sign up to receive more information about our upcoming Beach Outreach trip!
All food and lodging expenses will be covered. You will only have to arrange transportation to Ocean City, New Jersey!
Have questions? Feel free to reach out to ayetzer@generationlife.org.