My Nonprofit Reviews
DanGarwood633
Review for URJ Kutz Camp, Warwick, NY, USA
I first attended Kutz in the summer of 2003, during the interim year between the camper and counselor-in-training programs at my regional URJ camp. At the time, my focus at the Kutz leadership academy was on absorbing whatever I could to bring back to my home youth group and my regional camp the next summer. It wasn't until I was welcomed back as staff in the summer of 2008 that I realized I had found in Kutz the summer home that I no longer felt my former camp was. It doesn't do Kutz justice to continue comparing it to another camp. Kutz's merits stand entirely on their own, as a place where nearly two hundred Reform Jewish teens gather every summer to spend close to four weeks learning from each other and from those who were in their place before. The diversity of majors attracts participants with an equally diverse set of interests; the rigor of the program attracts only those who are serious about learning. As a staff member for two (and hopefully many more) years, it is truly gratifying to be a link in the chain of traditions, knowledge, and experience that define Kutz and Kutz's impact on the Reform Jewish movement. Many of the movement's past and current leadership have attended Kutz, and there is little doubt that the same will be said for its future leaders.
More Feedback
I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...
my time as a member, leader, and adult staff in NFTY, the Reform Jewish youth movement, and as a Reform Jewish leader during my undergraduate education. I use the leadership skills I learned at Kutz in almost every interpersonal interaction I have.
What I've enjoyed the most about my experience with this nonprofit is...
the music program. Kutz's Songleading major teaches its participants how to effectively lead singing sessions and religious services with the huge folk music repertoire of the Reform movement. The music is integrated into the entire camp program.
The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...
intensely passionate about supporting Kutz's mission. Kutz has changed thousands of lives for the better, and those are the people who choose to return as staff. They know what it's like and they strive to make their participants' summers just as special.
If this organization had 10 million bucks, it could...
repair or replace many of its older facilities, including a set of participant cabins that are approximately 35 years old. It could also afford to competitively hire the absolute best teachers the Reform movement has to offer.
Ways to make it better...
I hadn't contracted H1N1 this summer. The camp received a letter of commendation from the New York State Health Department for its handling of the flu outbreak, but that cannot make up for the seven days I could not spend with my entire Kutz family.
In my opinion, the biggest challenges facing this organization are...
its undersized donor pool. Since so many of Kutz's participants spend many more summers at their regional camps, their first choices for donations are generally to those camps.
How frequently have you been involved with the organization?
About once a year
When was your last experience with this nonprofit?
2009
