The following story first appeared in the Spring 2000 Glenmary Challenge.
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Camp Volunteer Hears 'Call' in Mississippi
By Susan Stevenot Sullivan  

Sean Cloherty, at Camp Glenmary in June 1999, is now teaching seventh- and eighth-graders at an all-boys African-American school in New York City.

Sean Cloherty has spent a lot of time the past few summers with young campers on a wooded bluff in Mississippi. A native of the Bronx, N.Y., and a graduate of Fordham University, Sean’s involvement with Camp Glenmary peaked in 1999 when he spent six months working from the rectory at St. Francis Church in Aberdeen, Miss.

From January through June, Sean volunteered full time, securing volunteer staff for camp, setting up and cleaning the camp facilities, coordinating volunteers, inviting and registering campers, working with the food bank, teaching English and helping Father Tim Murphy and Brother Terry O’Rourke with myriad tasks. Licensing and inspection challenges filled the weeks before camp opened. Sean then wound up his half-year of work by serving as camp coordinator during the four sessions in June.

When Sean graduated in September 1998, he accepted Father Tim’s offer to come to Glenmary’s Aberdeen mission and try a long-term volunteer experience. “I got there in January,” Sean recalls, “and various things just came along. At one point I was helping plant 3,000 trees. A few weeks later a group from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire came to help with the mess left by an ice storm at camp. We cut up trees, raked, burned, hauled, painted, washed. There was always something to do.”

The last-minute push to transport food, refrigerators and other supplies to camp as well as to fill the final counselor slots led right into Memorial Day weekend when camp began. During the four one-week sessions of camp, more than 200 young people attended from across the region. Counselors came from all over the country, particularly the Northeast and Midwest. Parish volunteers from Glenmary missions supported the program as well.

“Camp is a huge team effort,” Sean said. “There comes a point when you just completely lose yourself. Your time absolutely belongs to the kids. You’re serving people who need it.”

Sean had volunteered at camp for a few weeks a couple of years in a row before taking the coordinator plunge last year. He is currently back in New York working with seventh- and eighth-grade African Americans at an all-boys school. His camp experience was a good preparation for this work, he says.

“They’re great kids, but the academic environment is difficult,” Sean reports. “That grace I learned at camp comes into play. Maybe it’s a calling I didn’t see before.”

Sean’s school year in New York ends later than the school year in Mississippi—and the beginning of camp. But he is hoping to leave early to catch the last week of camp in June 2000.

“I’d really feel incomplete if I didn’t go to Mississippi in the summer,” he said. “You grow a lot in situations like that. That camp has changed who I am. It is great. I’ve just got to go!”