Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Dulce Morales said she has learned to duck when she hears gunfire.
There is no need for this tactic where she is spending most of this summer — Dunrovin Christian Brothers Retreat Center near Stillwater.
After spending seven summers attending five-day camps at Dunrovin from sixth through 12th grade, Morales, 19, decided to return this year as a camp counselor. She arrived May 31 and will be at Dunrovin until July 20. A few weeks later, she will head off to the University of Illinois at Chicago to begin her sophomore year.
Her camp experience started when she was a student at San Miguel School in Chicago, an independent Catholic middle school for students who face academic and economic challenges. Part of the curriculum involves field trips throughout the school year, including some overnights.
A five-day summer camp at Dunrovin is a requirement for all students, so she joined her class of nearly 30 sixth-graders in 2012 for her first chance to experience life in a northwoods atmosphere. She has gone every summer since and will be the first San Miguel student to return as a counselor since the school first started sending students to Dunrovin more than 20 years ago.
Dunrovin sits on 52 acres 10 miles north of Stillwater along the St. Croix River, and has been a ministry of the De La Salle Christian Brothers since it opened in 1964. Right in front of the two-story retreat building is a small lake that gives campers a chance to swim and paddle throughout the five days they spend there. There also are wooded areas with trails, creating an outdoors experience few San Miguel students, including Morales, ever get elsewhere.
Almost instantly during her first year at camp, Morales fell in love with the place. Among her numerous novel experiences was seeing a turtle in person for the first time. She also spotted other wildlife species, including whitetail deer, which freely roam the property.
It all added up to a serenity she could not find in her crime-riddled neighborhood back home.
“Dunrovin has become my safe place,” said Morales, who is Catholic and attends Immaculate Conception in Chicago with her parents and younger sister. “I love being here every summer. … It’s kind of like an escape” from the urban challenges in Chicago.
She said the spiritual part of the camp, including talks, small-group discussions with other girls and prayer, has strengthened her faith and fueled her resolve to keep coming back. After graduating from the eighth grade at San Miguel in 2014 and finishing her obligation to come to Dunrovin, she returned every year during high school for camps held for San Miguel graduates who wish to keep coming to camp. Last summer, she took part in a special program called DLITE (Dunrovin Leadership Intensive Training Experience), which is designed to help prepare teens to be camp counselors the following year.
During that weeklong training period, Morales and the other participants worked closely with Dunrovin’s executive director, Jerome Meeds, who came to Dunrovin in 1999 with his wife, Mary, and their four children to live and work at the retreat center.
Immediately, Meeds saw leadership potential — and more — in the cheerful young woman who had just graduated from high school and was looking for a chance to give back to young campers, including those from San Miguel.
“I remember a beautiful smile; she’d be glowing pretty much the whole week,” Meeds said of working with Morales at DLITE last year. “There’s something about Dulce. … What I see it as is God, the Holy Spirit, working.”
San Miguel teachers also attend camp, and one of them this year was also there when Morales was a camper during middle school. Alison Orbin is finishing her 19th year at the school, serving both as assistant principal and seventh-grade teacher. Morales came to Dunrovin as part of Orbin’s seventh-grade class in 2013.
“I was really excited to see her here (this year),” said Orbin, who brought 29 seventh-graders to Dunrovin June 16-20. “I just think it’s awesome that she’s doing this and she has this opportunity, and she has an opportunity to mentor kids from her old school, but also serve as a bridge for the younger counselors that are here as well to get a perspective of the (San Miguel) kids.”
Orbin and Meeds said that having someone from the same background as the San Miguel campers creates both an understanding of their lives back home and a rapport with them. It also strengthens Dunrovin’s connection with San Miguel and keeps the program going, which Orbin said is important for the school’s students.
“I don’t think words can really explain how the kids feel about it,” Orbin said. “First of all, they’re just safe. They don’t have to worry about any of the things going on back home, whether it’s in the neighborhood or whatever issues they’re dealing with. They have five days away where they’re completely free. And, when you see that (stress) come away from them, then they turn into kids and they have fun and they laugh.”
The joy was evident on the last full day of camp for Orbin’s seventh-graders June 18. Sunshine, blue skies and white puffy clouds created an idyllic summer atmosphere as San Miguel students gathered on the dock at the far end of the lake to try the rope swing.
They yelled and cheered as each took a turn. Morales stood in their midst, helping them climb onto a platform and handing them the rope. Her kind reassurance helped one girl make the leap after she stood on the platform for several minutes and nearly climbed back down out of fear. As the girl summoned the courage to jump, Morales joined the others in chanting her name and clapping. Cheers erupted when the girl swung off the platform and splashed into the water.
This is a small example of the satisfaction Morales finds in helping the campers during their five days at Dunrovin. It affirms her reasons for becoming a counselor.
“Mainly, I just wanted to come back and help out,” said Morales, who is studying psychology and wants to do graduate work in the field and become a psychologist. She hopes she can “make them feel the way I felt, and hopefully even have another student come back wanting to be a camp counselor.”
Morales’ infusion of a bright smile, helpful attitude and care for the San Miguel students is all part of the overall mission of the youth camps at Dunrovin, which Meeds labels retreats. The goal is simple, he said:
“Wowing them with God’s love.”
