- Sophia Gerenovich
of Southfield and=- )

Marilyn
camp co-director,:.
let loose on the
dance floor.

Max Galperin
ofSonthfidd-diznces
with Marilyn Wolfe.

Leonard and
Polina Grun t fest
of Southfield enjoy
themselves at
senior camp.

A Place In The Sun

Private donations keep senior adult camp running but for how long?

•

DIANA LIEBERMAN
Copy Editor/Education Writer

Jig

7/26

2002

20

I is the first day of Butzel Senior Adult Camp
in Ortonville, and Bernice Brodsky of
Orchard Lake is ready for water-skiing.
In a shady spot, artist Ann Hearshen, who
lives at the Harriett and Ben Teitel Jewish
Apartments in Oak Park, creates a pencil portrait of
fellow-camper Louis Sondheimer of Southfield.
Campers Leonard and Polina Gruntfest of
Southfield take a walk through the woods.
The rooms at Butzel Conference Center are fully
occupied with 40 seniors — 29 on financial aid —
and camp directors Marilyn Wolfe and Rivka
Latinsky. Both are employees of the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit, which
sponsors the program.
Although all first-time campers were accommodat-
ed, there were so many requests from returning
campers that Latinsky held a lottery to determine
who would attend.
Roast chicken and potato kugel are baking in the
kitchen and campers are gathering on the conference
center porch for a biblical role-playing activity. It's a
peaceful, lazy scene, one that's taken place every
summer for more than 30 years.
But senior adult camp almost didn't happen this
summer — thanks to the economic downturn that
has eliminated so many programs and institutions
throughout the country.
"When interest rates go down, funding goes
down," said Leslee Magidson, managing director of
the JCC in Oak Park.
Traditionally, Magidson said, funding has come
from two sources. The JCC earmarks part of its
annual budget for the camp. In addition, the pro-

gram receives interest from the Harriet S. Jackson
Senior Adult Camp Fund and the David Gornbine
JCC Fund To Support The Butzel Senior Program.
For 2001, these funds totaled more than $6,000,
which was down considerably from prior years due
to falling interest rates.
This year, the total was slightly more than $4,000,
she said.
Howard Neistein, chief financial officer for the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, said that,
"generally speaking, these types of programs are sub-
sidized by private endowments."
He emphasized that the downturn in funding for
senior camp and other programs of the Jewish
Community Center is "not a reflection of the worth
of the JCC or of senior camp itself."

mainly church-based organizations — she told her
audiences she was collecting money for the JCC
camp.
"They were really generous," Beck said.
In all, she raised more than $900.
Wolfe, who also runs the JCC travel program,
used that venue as another source for camp funding.
"People always want to give me tips, but, as a
Center employee, I can't take them," she said. "So I
told them, 'I can't take your money, but if you'd like
to donate to a great cause .. .'"
Beck called her gig at senior adult camp "one of
the most moving concerts I do all year."
About two-thirds of the campers every year are
from the former Soviet Union, and they're not
always familiar with the Broadway melodies and old
standards Beck sings.
"The first year I came, half these
4
Fishing For Funds
• folks didn't understand a word I
As the money available for sen-
said," Beck remembered. "But when
ior camp has dwindled, the camp
I sang 'God Bless America,' their
schedule has become shorter.
faces lit up."
When co-director Wolfe came to
It's the first summer at senior
the program in 1985, it took up
camp for Jeanette Pomish of
the whole summer. Camp now
Farmington Hills, although she's
runs for five days.
been at Butzel for Elderhostel and
There would have been no
Bubbie and Zaydie camp.
camp at all this summer without
"One of the reasons I came was
Robin Beck, a young singer from
Marilyn [Wolfe]," she said. "I went
Ferndale who has entertained
to Spain with her and she was mar-
campers for the past few years,
velous. I would go to anything she
Wolfe said.
was running."
Beck, who is not Jewish, donat-
Sophia Gerenovich of Southfield,
ed the proceeds of her new tape
in her second summer at camp, said
of Christmas music to the JCC
she had only one complaint: "It's
senior adult camp. And, when she Robin Beck sings old favorites
only five days."
entertained at other sites —
for the Butzel campers.

❑

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