When Ken and Jan Kurtz came to Camp Deerpark, camp had only been running for two summers. They came through the Mennonite Voluntary Service unit, a program that emphasized service ministry in communities and was located in New York City. “We were there from April of 1971 to April of 1973, and we had just…

Her name was Valerie. She was fighting two major life battles and was really close to losing them both. One was against cancer; she had lost all her hair and a lot of her weight. Her strength had gone and her body was plenty evidence of that. The other battle was against Santeria, an Afro-Latin…

The first year that I was on staff at camp was 1990. I had been coming to camp on retreats and for summer camp since I was a young child, but I didn’t work on staff until I was 19. Camp didn’t have the counselor-in-training program yet when I was in my late teens. I…

Ray and Annie sit at picnic tables beside the main house. It is an overcast day. As we talk, passersby casually interrupt to greet them. They are all members of the Torres family, who host yearly family reunions at Camp Deerpark. Ray and Annie live in Puerto Rico now, but in the late ’60s, as…