Meet our Staff of 2014!

New Staff:

Katie Borowicz: I am a Michigander, having grown up there and just graduated from University of Michigan with a degree in Biology and Environmental Science.  This will be my second summer in a row at a camp, having served as the Nature Program Leader at a camp in Catochin Mountain Park (in MD) last summer.  I love kayaking, hiking and anything outdoors.  I am excited to explore New Mexico this July for the first time and to get to know everyone.  I will be sharing my passion for nature and sustainability at camp as a Counselor and the Nature Specialist.

Sam Reddig is a friend from Flagstaff Arizona where he has grown up with Quaker values and an appreciation for nature. This is his first year working with Mountain Friends Camp, and he looks forward to sharing what he has and growing alongside friends at this new location.

Vasundhara Alsop: I like to create art with my hands in many different mediums. I have obtained a BA in studio arts from the Santa Fe University of Arts and Design. I was raised part of the time in Santa Fe, New Mexico but also in Nepal. I believe that my experience in both the places I have lived has given me the ideals of the Quaker camp. I have been a camp counselor at the Tree House Camp while I was a teenager and as a college student and I attended the camp as a child. I think that the Tree House Camp will be the perfect spot for Mountain Friends Camp.

John Russell: I am a retired public school teacher.  I began my  career teaching in a Gifted and Talented program in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  By the end of my career I was a high school English and Social Studies teacher in El Paso, Texas.  I’ve been attending the El Paso Quaker Meeting for three years now.  I enjoy singing, reading, camping, and cooking among other things.  Most of my adult life has been interwoven with social justice activism.  As a union member I came to understand that strength through community are necessary to create a better world; and as a human being I found that coming in contact with nature has a profound healing effect, and besides being fun, nature is just plain beautiful beyond all words.

Returning Staff

Emma Jonté, a recent high-school graduate, lives near Washington,

DC and will study studio art at Montgomery College next year, concentrating on painting and graphic design. She has worked in Friends Community School’s Extended-Day program for two years and its summer art camp for five years. She enjoys DC’s museums and cultural opportunities, but even more, she loves escaping its humidity and spending August in Northern California with her cousins, hiking in the Trinity Alps. She looks forward to going to Colorado for the first time and getting to know another Quaker community.

Lewis Bailey: I am young friend from Taos, NM. I have been working at summer camps since 2007. This is my second year at MFC. I recently returned from a year studying in China with LIU Global College, and in the fall I will be doing a research project in Mexico. I loves the outdoors, poetry, music, games, and jokes. My favorite parts of camp are hiking, singing, telling jokes, and being active.

Ariel Bibby: I am very excited to return to Mountain Friends Camp for my fifth year as a counselor. When I am not at camp I attend law school in Washington, DC where I live with my wife-who happens to be the camp director! My favorite parts of camp are playing games, telling stories, and getting to know new people.

Eric Wright: I’m a member of Mountain View Friends Meeting in Denver, and have been a Quaker all my life. I think my favorite job was working as a counselor and program director at Camp Dark Waters in New Jersey, when I was in high school and college. More recently I’ve helped run a Family Resource Center in Denver. My wife Judy and I have two grown daughters, Maya and Jenny and two grandsons, William and Thomas. I’m sixty-seven this year, retired but pretty busy. I like being outdoors, cooking, playing guitar and singing, and getting to know people in a group.

Beverley Weiler:  I have been part of summer camps for 50+ years,
starting with Girl Scouts, ‘way back when’! During the rest of the year I sew, make quilts and work with pre-schoolers to adults doing art therapy and re-evaluation co-counseling. Although I was raised Catholic, and still go to mass each week, I also have been attending the Santa Fe, N.M. meeting for about 30 years! I have been cooking for crowds since childhood and I’m looking forward to year #3 at MFC; sharing my energies and skills in the kitchen and during arts and crafts times.

Heather Bertram: I was born in Washington State, but I have lived in NM for a long time with my aunt Beverley. I like music, traveling, pen pals, collections, embroidery and  I have a disability called Asperger’s so you might think I’m shy, but it just takes me a while to get used to things. I really like watching ‘American Idol’. Last year we went to their concert after camp. I have been practicing my singing this year and look forward to sharing and learning some new songs. I go to Quaker Meeting in Santa Fe, and I help with the First Day school almost every week.

Lucy Bauer: I was born and raised in England, but have now spent half of my life in Colorado. I live in the mountains in a small log cabin outside Bailey with Dave and the younger three of our six kids, where we homeschool, raise chickens and play lots of music. I trained as an ecologist at college and enjoy gardening and planting 300 trees each year on our 43 acres each year. I also love to play my doublebass, Hugo, in the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra. I was raised a Quaker, and attend Mountain View Friends Meeting whenever I can get down there.

Pat Easterling: I was a Navy brat who moved often, though Dad managed to get several tours in Hawaii. As an adult I came to consider myself a Quaker, and after Brenda and I had children we became members of Logan Friends Meeting. Now we live on the Big Island of Hawaii where I like to bodysurf, see the new lava flow, “talk story” and am learning to hula dance. Looking forward to the songs, hikes, old and new friends and lots of PLORK this summer!

Camp Director: Anastacia Easterling: I grew up in Utah and became a member of Logan Friends Meeting right before moving away at age 17. Since then I’ve studied, worked and traveled in Sichuan China, New York City, Pendle Hill PA, Pahoa HI and Washington DC,
and I am always glad to come back to Logan and connect with friends and family. During college I spent a great summer as arts and crafts director at cabin counselor at Friends Camp in Maine. I talked it up so much to the IMYM Senior Young Friends that we decided to form a committee and start our own summer camp. Six years later, here we are getting ready for the fifth session of Mountain Friends Camp! I am looking forward to building Quaker community and having a great time with friends new and old this summer in Tincup, Colorado. See you soon!