Giving something back

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Groups that made use of Innisfree were many and diverse during these years. A year later the following description appeared in the 1990 Circle Guide to Pagan Groups, in the section for conference centers (page 24):

Innisfree, PO Box 47, Milanville, PA 18443. Phone: (914) 791-7014 (Tom Rue), (717) 729-7197 (Center).
Founded in 1970, non-profit status granted on federal and state levels in 1971. Open for visitors: year-round by reservation. Family-oriented nonsectarian retreat. Closely fronted by a state road, portions of Innisfree's sloped meadow and 10 wooded acres are quite private. Nearby rapids on Upper Delaware River also a powerful ritual site. Primarily relying on April-to-October dormitory building, total sleeping capacity is 55 (plus yard space for a few tents, if necessary) as well as recreation and dining halls.

Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Now (2024) in its 38th year of existence, very few of its current active members remember meeting at Innisfree because around 1997 the fellowship moved to the Beach Lake Community Center after the Milanville camp was sold. The Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (UDUUF) remains a vibrant and spiritually diverse liberal religious congregation committed to the celebration of human potential and to encourage meaningful connections among its members and outward in service to the community.

The UDUUF's early organizers often met before weekly services to plan upcoming Sunday programs. The order of service of UDUUF meetings when they were held at Innisfree generally resembled the following, and is still followed today: opening words; candle-lighting to share joys and concerns; announcements; opening words; free=will offering; sermon or visiting speaker; questions and dialogue; closing words; and (of course) refreshments. 

The fellowship continues to offer itself as being open to all who support the aims and programs of the local group and the principles and purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association (uua.org). UUA was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association, established in 1825, and the Universalist Church of America, which dates to 1793. The UDUUF first met in August 1987 at the home of the late Rev. Ray Pontier then of Narrowsburg (who died 1994). Pontier had then recently retired from full-time UU ministry in Lakeland, New Jersey, when he wrote a letter to the editor of The River Reporter inviting local readers who shared common UU values of justice, equity and compassion in human relations to meet. A handful showed up.

"I believed in the need for a liberal religious group in this strongly conservative region," Rev. Pontier said in a letter the next year. "When I first organized the Fellowship I stated that it would have a future only if enough people really wanted it -- and if it developed the leadership to carry on by itself," he added.

Enough apparently wanted it because the UDUUF is still here. Many believe it still has a future. After that 1987 meeting in the Pontier living room, the group met Sunday mornings at the Innisfree recreation hall in Milanville, use of which was donated by Bud and Ann Rue. On March 13, 1990, they filed a certificate of incorporation with the NYS Secretary of State and soon thereafter officially affiliated with UUA. Later, the group moved to the Beach Lake Community Center and in recent years has continued to meet at the Narrowsburg Union and online.

From its inception, fellowship members committed their collective energy to supporting human services, education, healthcare, in a society where all are welcomed, while emphasizing concepts of bodily and personal autonomy and choice, human rights, and "an atmosphere in which each person will be able to share convictions, express doubts, and explore new dimensions of truth and reality."

When a local parents' group asked for help starting a parent-run Montessori elementary school in 1991, they met with the UDUUF board of directors and negotiated articles of agreement under which the UDUUF gave corporate sponsorship to "The River School", providing the unincorporated parents with exemption from taxation and government regulations for schools to operate, also at Innisfree, for a few years. The fellowship continues to look for ways to support like-minded charities in furtherance of spiritual ideals of human freedom, health, learning, and equality. 

The initial River School governing board consisted of Bill Klaber of North Branch (co-coordinator), Alyce Van Etten of Monticello (co-coordinator), Gerry Bilick, M.D. of Jeffersonville (treasurer), Marion Brandis of White Sulpher Springs (secretary), Alice Christov of Narrowsburg (finance chair), Allison Smith of Narrowsburg (enrollment chair), Mary Darcey-Martin (curriculum chair), Zeke Boyle of Callicoon (construction chair), Jean Kammer of Honesdale (teacher), Andrew Darcey-Martin of White Lake (teacher), and Carmen B. Rue (UU representative). 

This school was entirely independent of Innisfree Corporation (which merely served as a landlord), but was sponsored by the UDUUF. Church-sponsorship had the effects of streamlining The River School from the usual regulatory requirements with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, but all curriculum and staffing decisions for the school were made by its own parent-run board of trustees. All that was required of The River School was that they provide officer and director liability insurance naming the UDUUF and Innisfree Corporation as additional insureds. The school operated successful for two years until disagreements arose among the parents running it, reportedly over the maximum age of kids to be served by the school.

Wayne County Habitat for Humanity

Another organization that was born at Innisfree, and which was nurtured at the start and supported financially ever since by the UDUUF, was the Wayne County Habitat for Humanity (HFH)

Even with all community activities at Innisfree, in a spring 1992 meeting of the fellowship's board, Bud gave his opinion that the religious group was not doing enough for the local community in which its members live. Inviting interesting speakers every week was not enough to justify the time commitment. "We ought to try to give something back," he urged. No one disagreed, but it was not until the following year that the idea of a walk-a-thon came up. The fellowship agreed to sponsor the 1993 walk and Bud became the event's most active promoter.