COMMUNITY
Hilary Dreyer
Camp Jabberwocky’s New Executive Director
By Amelia Smith
Hilary Dreyer’s quiet competence is fueled by a clear sense of purpose. Her work in the nonprofit world reflects a deep appreciation of her home and community on Martha’s Vineyard. She has recently come into the spotlight as the new executive director of Camp Jabberwocky, a 71-year-old residential vacation camp for people with disabilities, and one of the island’s most venerable nonprofits.
One morning in May, I met her at Camp Jabberwocky’s campus to talk about her new role and what’s led up to it. She was accompanied by Potato, her leggy husky-mix rescue dog. Hilary is at home in the outdoors – in her free time she enjoys sailing with friends, beachwalking, surfing with her husband, or running, both on her own and with the Amity Island Running Club. She loved growing up on the island, and her parents and sister still live here, too. In college at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, she double-majored in Latin American Studies and Visual Anthropology, taking semesters abroad in Bolivia and Argentina. She didn’t envision coming back to the island right away, and spent a year traveling after graduation, including some time volunteering at the Reykjavík International Film Festival.
In 2014, she returned to the Vineyard and took a sec-ond summer internship at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival (now Circuit Arts). That led to a series of roles at the film festival over the course of seven years, culminating in two years as executive director. “I realized that I liked hav-ing film as a way to introduce people to new perspectives and ideas,” Hilary says. Joy, curiosity, wonder, and community came together at the film festival, much as they do at Camp Jabberwocky.
As a young professional person on the Vineyard, Hilary was inten-tional about developing her skills. She joined a cohort of students in the Core Certificate Program in Nonprofit Leadership, available through the MV Nonprofit Collaborative in cooperation with Tufts University. In that course of study, she got to know leaders from a diverse range of local organizations.
“Nonprofits are the very fabric of our community,” Hilary says. “It was a really broad swath of nonprofit leaders, but many of the problems we were trying to solve were the same.” Collaborations grew out of their weekly meetings and through getting to know each others’ organizations. The experience opened up Hilary’s vision to the breadth of nonprofits, and how much the Island relies on all the work that nonprofits do here.
Later, at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Foundation (formerly the Permanent Endowment for Martha’s Vineyard), Hilary managed endowed funds and grants. She helped to secure millions in funding for the island’s needs in the wake of the Covid pandemic, managed scholarships, and worked on grant administration. Working for a funder put her in touch with more nonprofit partners, and honed her storytelling skills.
“I really care about building and creating space for community, looking at everything through an inclusivity lens,” she says. Although an outsider might see the Film Festival and Camp Jabberwocky as very different places, Hilary feels a similar energy at both of them, with volunteers coming together to create a big event. Circles overlap here, and ripples reach all around the island. As Hilary began to get to know the Jabberwocky community through their online interactions, she asked what the campers’ favorite activities were. Some of them said that their favorite thing was the drive-in movies – the same drive-in movies that Hilary had gotten off the ground as the director of the Film Festival in 2020.
Hilary’s contributions to the island community go beyond her day job. She’s also on the board of the Friends of Family Planning and on the race committee for the Gay Head 10k, which raises funds for the lighthouse. She mentors young people through the Community Ambassador Partnership Stepping Stones mentorship program, which helps first generation immigrants to transition out of high school and into higher education or work opportunities. “I want to be doing good in the world,” Hilary says, “and, more specifically, contributing to this beautiful place that raised me.”
For more information click: campjabberwocky.org, info@campjabberwocky.com
Phone from June to September: 508-693-2339