After a deadly shooting at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro, Arkansas, David Gill and others pined for a way to aid students in their emotional and spiritual recovery. He began delving into the idea of holding a healing camp at Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, where he worked a few hours away.
A few days before Hurricane Laura made landfall as a category 4 storm in the early hours of Aug. 27, Marie Nelson, associate director of Gilmont Camp and Conference Center in Gilmer, Texas, reached out via email to the administrators of the nonprofit Evergreen Life Services, a community for adults of differing intellectual and developmental abilities in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She wanted to make sure they knew residents and staff from Evergreen would be welcome to shelter at the camp if needed, just as they had done briefly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
For diehard fans of acronyms—of which Presbyterians surely have more than their fair share—the Rev. David Gill has mined something of a GEM. Gill, who will retire on January 31 as executive director of Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, says that throughout his 20-year tenure at the PC(USA)-related camp he has always “looked for things that can be financially self-sustaining for the long haul.”
