Volunteer coordinator returns each year because ‘this is where I need to be.’
by Margaret Gabriel

A GIFT: That’s how Heidi Stephens describes her long history with Glenmary—and Camp Glenmary. She’s pictured above (in hat) with her sister-in-law, Holly.

In June 1995, Heidi Stephens accompanied her son, Noah, to Mississippi and to Camp Glenmary where he worked to accumulate service hours in preparation for Confirmation.

A third-grade teacher from Daytona Beach, Fla., Heidi had the ability to look at the camp with a teacher’s eye and a mom’s eye. And what she saw pleased her so much that she has come back each year to the camp that Glenmary has operated since the mid-1970s.

She explains her annual pilgrimage to Mississippi very simply: “I’ve come back because I feel this is where I need to be.” And this year is no different. She will work with Glenmary Father Tim Murphy and over 80 volunteers to make sure Camp Glenmary is a success once again.

Camp Glenmary, held each year on the grounds of Camp Wrenwoode in northeastern Mississippi, is in session the entire month of June. Friendship Camp runs the first two weeks of the month giving low-income kids, ages nine through 11, an opportunity for swimming, sports, and arts and crafts. Heidi says she enjoys seeing the “TV generation” get in touch with nature.

The second two weeks, Catholic kids, ages nine through 14, gather for fun, faith-sharing, liturgy and a sense of their tradition during Catholic Camp. These young people live in areas where other Catholics are scarce, so the opportunity to be a part of a group in which they are not a minority comes only once a year at camp. The campers translate their experiences at camp into how they live their faith the rest of the year. “They’ll do things at camp that you can never get them to do at home!” Heidi says.

Father Tim, pastor at the Glenmary mission in Pontotoc, Miss., and director of the camp since 1994, says Catholic Camp gives kids an opportunity to experience “faith in a different key.” He calls himself the camp’s “utility infielder” and he gives full credit for the camp’s success to folks like Heidi and the many other counselors.

Each year, Heidi recruits camp counselors. “My family and friends avoid me during the month of May!” she laughs. She also leads an orientation for the volunteers and sees that the “behind the scenes” aspects of camp run smoothly.

Heidi has a long history with Glenmary. She entered the Catholic Church in 1975 under the guidance of Glenmary Father Gerry Peterson, who also married Heidi and her husband and baptized Noah. She says she has always admired Glenmary’s mission and outreach efforts and sees Camp Glenmary as an extension of that outreach. Her affiliation with Glenmary and her work at camp has allowed her “to look at the Church with different eyes.”

And she is also aware of the eyes that see her every year at camp. She thinks about the example she gives to both the campers and counselors and remembers a statement from a friend, “You may be the only Bible those folks read,” the friend said. “[Your work] has to do with living the Word and helping kids (at Catholic Camp) to live and learn their faith.”

The mother of one, she always wanted to have many children and by working at camp she can be mother to over 50 campers for each session. “It’s a wonderful thing!” she says. “It’s a gift.”

She describes her relationship with Glenmary—and with the camp—as a partnership. “And I hope Glenmary gets as much out of it as I do.”